A yogini at large

BLOG 178

“We spend so much time identifying with the busy mind, the monkey mind, the restless mind, all the names we label it with. We focus on the limitations, rather than the potential. We try to control it, overcome the negative tendencies, but what if we let the Light in? What if we recognized our minds as Light?”

(Swami Radhananda Ch. 8, “A Skylike Mind”; Living the Practice)

A well of untapped creative potential. The latter is what came up as I reflected on what it might mean to recognize my mind as Light. Swami Radhananda explains that most people function below their potential due to fear of the unknown. She encourages us with the reminder that “the mind has powers to continually manifest creativity and we can use this function to imagine beyond our limitations”.

This is echoed in a recent Daily Om post:

“In the chakra system, the solar plexus is the seat of personal power. One way to evaluate your sense of power is to breathe into this part of the body. If it feels tight or nervous, it’s an indication that you may not be fully expressing your power. You can heal this imbalance by expanding the area of the solar plexus with your breath. You can also visualize a bright yellow sun in this part of your body. Allow its heat to melt any tension, and let its light dissolve any darkness or heaviness. Repeating this exercise on a regular basis can restore and rejuvenate your sense of power.”

Swami Radha’s Divine Light Invocation also focuses on Light and manifesting its power, but rather than quote yet another source, I ought to start putting things in my own words! I cite outside sources to convince the reader that I’m not a “nut-bar”, though a lot of nut-bars I know seem to grasp these esoteric ideas better than those of us inhibited by conformity, by our chosen costumes of identity.

I see an image of the chameleons that so fascinated me with their ability to change color to blend in with their surroundings. The octopi are even better at camouflage. Unless one sees them on the move, stealing across the rocks, or shooting like comets with long trailing tails, it’s almost impossible to spot them. They can not only blend in by changing into an array of different colors — they mimic the shapes of the seabed around them, and ”frill” up their skin so that even their texture mimics the texture of the rock/coral/lava formations that they conform to. This amazing phenomenon is what I look for most avidly whenever snorkeling.

Would that I could catch myself at this same camouflage act.

More like the octopus than I want to admit, I see a distinct advantage in blending in (anyone who’s watched “My Octopus Teacher” can tell you that!) and avoid the risks of standing out, of exposing myself to the criticism or rejection of my peers. But to do that diminishes myself as a member of society, leaving a social automaton in my place. Thomas Merton offers this:

“When men live huddled together without true communication, there seems to be greater sharing, and a more genuine communion. But this is not communion, only immersion in the general meaninglessness of countless slogans and clichés repeated over and over again so that in the end one listens without hearing and responds without thinking”…”He secretes clichés”.

Surely we’re meant for better things than that.

If its true that the mind has powers to continually manifest creativity, and we can use this function to imagine beyond our limitations, it would be a sorry loss to humankind were we to inhibit this function in order to blend in like our chameleon, simply to maintain the status quo as we know it.

So how to keep the ego’s desire to be seen, heard, respected and admired in check while not hiding our light under a bushel, as it were? How to be in the world but not of the world, as the yogis tell us? Having come this far, I’m not sure how to finish this blog. Clearly a certain amount of self-awareness is necessary to observe the cause-and-effect patterns of our lives. This self-observation can best be done by tracking one’s footprints in a journal. How else to register what choice of actions or words have resulted in what outcomes? Time and time again.

Dare I suggest that the ability to observe one’s life with detachment and honesty is what Swami Radhananda means by using our creative powers to transcend our limitations? Could we use our imagination to create or visualize what changes in action or speech might change the outcomes which we have in past found dissatisfying? We cannot go back into a physical past but perhaps, with the light of understanding, we can preclude those outcomes from being perpetuated in our future. Otherwise, what we’re left with is a perennial cycle of self-fulfilling prophesies.

Better we should dare, at least, to make different mistakes…

BLOG 177

“The renunciate is not someone who has less life, but someone who has less illusion. Not someone who has rejected the world, but someone who has seen through it. They are not trying to be spiritual. They are not trying to be anyone. They are simply no longer fooled by the costume of identity.”

”Modern Sannyasa: A Quiet Life in the World, but Not of It” (thebrokentusk.com)

Yesterday I started a long overdue process of weeding through closets and drawers to rid us of items that no longer serve us. I was appalled to see the condition of bedding and towels that were stained, worn, mismatched, lacking buttons or stuffing or just plain ugly. Jim helped me pack six giant plastic bags-full to go to a commercial laundry service, knowing that it would take forever and probably break my washing machine were I to clean all of it at home. I despair that much of it will have to be replaced, anyway, but it has served us for enough years that I should be able to dispose of it guilt-free, and go on a minor shopping spree.

I’m always curious about what prompts such ambitious house-cleaning, weight loss, sports goals, higher degree or other self-and-home improvement schemes. Such motivation doesn’t come easily, obviously, or the stuff I am replacing wouldn’t have ended up in such dreadful shape. In my case, the motivation came from a reminder of my mortality, from a desire to clear karma and live more simply. And perhaps more authentically.

With a view to mortality, I’ve lately been curious about the final stage of life described as sannyasa in the Vedic tradition. Vedanta philosophy divides life into four more or less equal stages; student, householder, seeker, and sage (or sannyasin).

On the Broken Tusk (Ancient Insights for a Modern World) website, I came across a very accessible essay that:

“…explores what sannyasa might look like in modern life—not as a costume or performance, but as a shift in identity. It is not one-size-fits-all. Sannyasa today can take many forms. But its heart remains the same: freedom from identification with the world, and the quiet joy of being rooted in what doesn’t change”.

Being rooted in what doesn’t change has always held great appeal for me, offering, as it does, something outside of, or beyond, “the diffuse, anonymous anxiety, the nameless fears, the petty itching lusts and all the pervading hostilities which fill mass society the way water fills the ocean”, as Thomas Merton wrote in New Seeds of Contemplation.

Broken Tusk introduces the “costume of identity” to describe the many roles and aspirations one picks up as one grows from child to parent to retiree and elderhood, ultimately achieving a degree of detachment and equanimity towards everything we once thought we could, should, ought or want to be; the trappings of successful living, according to modern Western society.

Ironically, as we reach a certain age, the idea of downsizing reverses the trend from “getting and spending” to shedding the acquisitions that become more and more a burden as time goes by. I would even argue that the more trapped we are by the trappings of success, the more limitations we place on our inner growth and Self-realization. By Self I mean the part of us that remains when we take away all the layers of personality, concepts and illusions that comprise our costume of identity.

Broken Tusk explains it thus:

“Modern sannyasa doesn’t require abandoning your home, phone, or daily routines. Instead, it asks something subtler: stop clinging to outcomes, drop the performance of identity, and let go of the compulsive need to become someone.

“In a world obsessed with productivity, self-improvement, and perpetual motion, a modern sannyasi lives differently. Not rebelliously. Not dramatically. But quietly—as one who no longer needs to prove, possess, or pursue.”

I’m tempted to paste that last paragraph on my bathroom mirror, so succinctly does it describe the drives that have propelled me in past. It brings to mind the cliché of “being vs doing”, and suggests that now is a very good time to streamline my life.

Before it steamrolls over me…

Blog 176

“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.” (Robert Frost)

Last Monday just about did me in.

So nervous was I about a looming appointment that I was in no shape to drive. Trying to get the voice guidance on my Waze app to work, I drove into a median. No harm done but in that moment of complete inattention, I could’ve hit a much more damaging obstacle. Or person!

Shaken into paying closer attention to my driving, I arrived at my “destination” only to find I’d plugged in the wrong address. I’d taken myself to W14th Avenue versus W15, to which I rerouted myself, only to find that I’d done something else to sabotage my arrival, since there was no such office on a dead-end residential road.

While frantically trying to expand my Waze map, I froze the app altogether. When I finally got through to the doctor’s receptionist I learned that I’d swapped “avenue” for “street”, and was still several minutes away from (and already twenty minutes late for) my actual destination. On the plus side I stumbled upon a parking spot right in front of the correct building and executed an excelled parallel park in a fairly tight space, (but for the dent I might’ve put in the licence plate of the van behind me.)

Along with the parking “win” I was heart-warmed by the genuine concern that several city workers showed earlier, as I stood bewildered in front of the wrong address and bleated that I must be lost. They all gathered round a phone and pulled up a Google map to show me where I was meant to be.

I was equally relieved when the doctor’s receptionist was unfazed by my late arrival and said they’d taken the next patient already so I could slot in once they were gone. Unaccustomed to such a tolerant response (I recently got a callous reaction from a receptionist who told me I’d have to wait months for another appointment and pay the not insignificant no-show fee) that I could’ve cried. As if the universe wanted to be even kinder to me, I witnessed another senior come into the office asking twice for directions to an office just around the corner, whereupon the receptionist left her desk unattended and accompanied the flustered woman to her appointment. It echoed what Swami Radha said about grace:

“If you have received a lot of grace in your life, pass a little bit on to others. Have patience. Have understanding. Be kind. Be considerate, even if your patience is tested to its utmost.”

I realized that if I wanted to live in a kinder, gentler world I had to practice patience even when rudely dismissed by a harried receptionist, whose impression was erased by gratitude for the receptionist who helped me on Monday.

I have no particular theme for this blog other than to say that the way we treat and are treated by other people can make or break our faith in humanity. Lofty thoughts and ideals are inspiring in their way, but a more important contribution to my fellow humans is to be found in how I navigate every day, how I treat every great or small exchange. And how I process whatever setbacks come my way. As I age, I am continuously surprised by how little prepared I am for the speed bumps and wrong turns I continue to make. But I’m optimistic that there’s also new joys and unanticipated glories on the road ahead.

So long as I don’t let myself get too distracted by my Waze app.

BLOG 175

“Mmmm in vain, in vain
I tell you we’re all the same
‘Cause there you stand
A-sayin’ man it’s not for real
‘Cause we’re the ones
Who get to steal the show
And I don’t know
I guess you’re right
But even so
If there’s no audience
There just ain’t no show”

(Chilliwack, “Rain-O” 1970)

As I contemplated Eckhart Tollés remarks on the ego being the state of the unobserved mind, and the fact that, without an external reference point the ego couldn’t exist, the lyrics to the Chilliwack band’s hit song “Rain-O” came to mind, particularly the line: “If there’s not audience there just ain’t no show.”

This led to reflections on how many of my choices have been based on what I thought others might think. Yesterday, when heading out for dinner, I noted that I chose my outfit with regard to where we were going, the restaurant’s decor and rating, and the clientele I might encounter there. In Whistler, anything goes as far as fashion is concerned, allowing that there’s a distinct “mountain culture” which lends itself to mud-spattered endurance bikes being marched through the village by their relatively youthful, equally mud-spattered and safety-armored riders. Acknowledging that this was never a look I’d be able (or willing) to pull off, I opted to dress according to a sign I saw posted in a picture window that read: “Smile, you’re part of our view”.

I was also probably unconsciously guided by the kinds of things my mother would say to a much younger me, e.g. “Always put on clean underwear lest you get hit by a car and end up in hospital”, or the equally unlikely, “Always practice good table manners in case you get to have dinner with the queen some day”. The closest I ever came to dining with “royalty” was a meal shared with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, (accompanied by my friend, their niece, Sime Taylor) at which time both celebrities drank copiously (as did I — no judgment please) and la Liz jokingly asked a bodyguard if he wanted a knuckle sandwich. Where’s the class in that?

But I digress.

Such reminiscences lead to the obvious conclusion that, just as Tollé explains, most of my sense of self, my roles, opinions and preferences are the stuff of unobserved self-talk, aka thoughts. Otherwise known as conditioning. Tollé calls it object consciousness. As opposed to space consciousness. But that’s not what I’m interested in today.

What I’m interested in is how much I have taken for granted in my life, such as having spent that ancient gap year in France, learning the language and meeting people who were way out of my league (while picking up several unsavory habits and generally behaving badly). Thereafter being university-educated care of my parents, marrying my childhood sweetheart, raising four cherished children, and, upon first impressions, having since led a life of relative ease. Much of it thinking, as per the Rain-O lyrics, that I was one of those who got to steal the show.

So what changed? Reality dawned. The recession of the ‘80s slapped me upside the head and I became intimately acquainted with suffering — the great universal teacher in its multiple guises. And gradually the realization dawned that there must be something beyond the names and forms, illusions and objects that had for so long defined me. It’s true that when there’s really nowhere to turn, we seek the assurance of something beyond the small, individual self and the world she (in my case) occupies. Which is also about the time that “grace” comes to mind. One great evolutionary leap occurs when one stops thinking “why me?” and begins to appreciate the close escapes and even greater blessings that have come one’s way.

Swami Radha offer this:

“Our aim has to be to become closer to accepting the Divine for what the Divine is. That’s really the crux of the matter of love. The evidence of divine love that we are all looking for is really not so difficult to find. Just look back in your life at all the dangerous or very unpleasant things that you have escaped. You may have been just on the edge and then by some good turn of destiny, you avoided a disaster. You can see that grace has been functioning in your life to a large extent. If you look at where grace has worked for you, you will find the proof and the evidence of divine love”…and…”you may also recognize that you haven’t done anything specific to deserve this grace.”

It’s also an act of divine love that we have the capacity to recognize how grace has been operating in our lives, despite the speed bumps and the “why me’s”, and carry on living with more gratitude and humility.

Swami Radha finishes her chapter on Love with this:

“If you have received a lot of grace in your life, pass a little bit on to others. Have patience. Have understanding. Be kind. Be considerate, even if your patience is tested to its utmost.”

And don’t hesitate to share your peanut butter cups.

BLOG 174

It’s a breezy autumn day as I lie on my sun-warmed yoga mat in front of the sliding doors to our outdoor deck. As my online yoga class winds down into Savasana (corpse pose) I note the tension in my body and ask myself: “why am I always on “amber alert”? There could not be less cause for tension. And yet my jaw is tight and my mind active with a jumble of distractions.

To interrupt these uninvited thoughts I repeat to myself: “with every inhalation, awareness increases. With every exhalation, relaxation deepens”. After a few minutes of this repetition, a brief mental quiet is created, and a question arises: “is this state of “amber alert” a function of ego? And if so, how can I liberate myself from its grip?”

After the class, and having done my usual internet searches, I came up with a brilliant explanation of ego in a YouTube talk by Eckhart Tollé:

“The ego is a sense of self that arises when the mind is completely unobserved. The unobserved mind brings about the ego, in fact the unobserved mind is the ego. These are mental structures which are energy formations, because every thought is an energy formation, energy formations in your head that say “That’s me. That’s me and my life.”

All of these ever-present ideas form one’s sense of self or personality.

Tollé continues with:

“There are certain characteristics to this egoic state; one characteristic is that it exists in a state of frequent dissatisfaction, discontent, and there’s an underlying current, an undercurrent of “something is missing in my life.”

I did a mental happy dance when I heard this explanation because I had expressed these same feelings, particularly the sense of lack, on a walk with a friend the previous weekend. I’d questioned why there would be a sense of lack if indeed nothing was lacking?

In order to better understand what was happening when these impoverished feelings arose, I read on about Tollés “transcendent dimension of consciousness”, described by IA as “an unconditioned, formless dimension of pure awareness that exists prior to thought or individual personality.”

As this idea is almost impossible for me to grasp, I gravitate to Michael Singer’s metaphor of consciousness as a movie screen: I, as the audience, am observing the action on this screen, but I am distinctly separate from it. That would be an ideal state of being, and indeed is what Tollé is trying to explain as the transcendent dimension of consciousness.

That said, how often does one forget this separation and get so absorbed in, and identified with, the action on the screen that we don’t even know where we’re sitting? This is what is happening when we let circumstances and people outside of us determine our sense of who, what and where we are.

It also echoes what I quoted in my last blog: the person who looks outwards dreams, the person who looks inwards, awakens.” Awakening in the case of our movie screen metaphor would mean going up to the projection room and turning off the projector. The projector being all the thoughts and illusions, the beliefs and conditioning that one has picked up through a lifetime of looking outwards.

My own strategy, recently developed to deal with the voices in my head that create a sense of lack, dissatisfaction and unhappiness, is to stop and ask “who are you?” Almost invariably when I do that, the voice stops. It’s like turning on a high beam and catching a thief picking the lock in a dark alley. All action freezes for at least a few seconds. It’s really quite amazing. I can see the part of me that wants to chase the thief, the thought, chase it down to its lair in the ground, but in so doing I’m just caught up once again in that constant stream of mental talk.

When that happens I go back to my breath, the focus on inhalation and exhalation that creates inner space and quietness in the mind. Pema Chödrön offers this:

“Meditation provides a way for us to train in the middle way—in staying right on the spot. We are encouraged not to judge whatever arises in our mind. In fact, we are encouraged not to even grasp whatever arises in our mind. What we usually call good or bad we simply acknowledge as thinking, without all the usual drama that goes along with right and wrong. We are instructed to let the thoughts come and go as if touching a bubble with a feather. This straightforward discipline prepares us to stop struggling and discover a fresh, unbiased state of being.”

The unbiased state of being is the blank movie screen. And with any luck, the lights go up and we permanently walk out of the ego-mind’s theatre!

BLOG 173

“The person who looks outside, dreams; the person who looks inside, awakens.” Carl Jung

Self awareness is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s helpful to know when to zip my lip versus offer unsolicited advice to friends, our children, my spouse, or the guy blowing leaves on the street. But it can also be deeply discouraging, when I register just how often I do the things I theoretically know better than to do. This self-reproach, as I understand it, is just inverted ego. As I delved into the literature on inverted ego, I came across a useful quote:

“I don’t think much of myself, but I’m all I think about.”

And therein lies the rub. Thinking too much of oneself is as stunting as too much thinking about oneself.

In short, an egotistical person thinks they are far superior to others, while one struggling with an inverted ego thinks him or herself to be deeply inferior. The common denominator is thinking of oneself at all!

Why is this aspect that we call ego so powerful a master over our self esteem?

In my personal experience, the desire to survive in the context of my social matrix or “tribe” governs much of my thinking and acting. As a social animal, this is not surprising. Helpless at birth, we depend on the acceptance and approval of others to meet our basic needs. Swami Radha describes it thus:

“That desire to survive is why you try to please, why you are “nice.” You want to be accepted. You want to be heard. You want to be listened to. You want your remarks and contributions to be appreciated. To achieve that, you will go through many complicated mental-emotional dances. But that kind of survival in the family, in business or in a group of friends is not satisfying. You want to survive also in your own mind, in your own judgement, in your own criticism. The idea in your mind of what you should be is a very complicated thing in itself. That you should be beautiful, intelligent, wise, six feet tall, have this nose or that colour of hair, these are all very primitive ideas, but they are very, very powerful.”

These primitive ideas come from the reptilian brain or amygdala, which I’ve written about in previous blogs. This fight, flight or freeze mechanism operates outside our prefrontal cortex, or conscious mind, and springs into action when it perceives a threat to our survival. For example, it’s the part of the brain that sees a tiger and doesn’t waste time thinking “friend or foe?” — it prompts us to hightail it out of there by the quickest means possible.

The problem arises when we allow this fight, flight or freeze mechanism to be carried far beyond our basic survival needs, letting it govern the way we see ourselves in any situation — alone, or among friends, neighbours, and strangers.

So what to do about it? How to reason with a part of the brain that doesn’t listen to reason? Short answer, you can’t. Long answer, you really can’t. Don’t even try. This is why meditators instruct us to simply watch our thoughts, see the endless internal chatter about how it is or how it is or how it isn’t, how it should and how it shouldn’t and, as Pema Chödrön advises:

“…drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other people think we want to be or ought to be. We give it up and just look directly with compassion and humor at who we are.”

That is self-acceptance. It’s also the key to freeing ourselves from an overarching ego, inverted or otherwise, and an endless cycle of mental gymnastics that has far outlived its usefulness.

🤸 🤸‍♀️ 🤸‍♂️ 🦩

BLOG 172

Sept. 14,2026

“We are creatures of habit, so if we invite changes to break our habits, that is very helpful.”

Swami Sivananda Radha Time to be Holy

The above statement sounds simple enough, but what was surprising about it was the context in which Swami Radha used it. In her chapter on Fear, she cites different kinds of fear, as any dictionary will agree, and, while we may conquer a particular fear, there are many other, subtle ways that fear keeps one from achieving goals that another part of our being would like to accomplish, or at least attempt.

I have been delving into information on fear and vulnerability (next attempt will be hypnosis) because I’m lacking the confidence to ride my road bike on anything that isn’t straight, wide and has next to no traffic. Anyone who has ever visited West Vancouver will tell you what an impossibility that is, unless I want to limit my riding to laps between Park Royal and back. You’ll note that “limit” is the operative word. The more fears I give in to, the fewer options I have.

So what to do? An obvious answer might be to “feel the fear and do it anyway”. For me, the suggestion that I can’t do something is a prime motivator. At the staff picnic on Saturday I was asked if I still drove a car, and if so, why didn’t I want to drive the ‘53 Buick that my husband took to the picnic. I was so insulted that I asked Jim to video me driving this classic vehicle the very next morning. (On a wide, flat road with very little traffic!) baby steps.

We’ve all heard the expression “don’t get angry, get even”, but in fact my anger (or hurt pride) was the motivator I used to get over the fear of damaging a collector car. Daring myself to do something works almost as well. After my hip surgery I dared myself to ride the bike leg of the Lavaman triathlon, or sell my precious bike, and thereby alleviated my fear of biking on the busy Queen K highway. Now, conquering my fear of the narrow, winding, hilly roads in West Vancouver is going to require some serious motivational ammo.

This reminds me of a quote a friend offered recently: “I used to procrastinate; now I just don’t do it.”

When does one say “Uncle” and just give up? I’m taking my cue from the little hummingbird that visited our garden moments ago. This little guy showed up not long ago and was promptly chased off by the bigger hummingbird whose turf our container garden seems to be. Now our tiny feathered interloper waits until the bigger bird has fed and left before it swoops in undetected. I can do that too. Pick a time of day when the cars and other bikers have left, or not yet arrived, and do small sections of the ride. The old elephant in the room strategy, taking it one bite at a time.

Or just not do it.

BLOG 171

Sept. 7, 2026

“…when the monkey mind becomes greedy, then that part we call the inner Self, the soul, becomes sad because it has lost contact with us. When that contact is lost, we go into moods where nothing is right, everything is wrong, life is miserable, and we have a string of complaints. We know that these complaints have little truth. Sometimes we throw them outward just as a relief from the imagined pressure created by self-importance, which also comes from the monkey mind.“

(Swami Sivananda Radha Time to be Holy)

Summer has flown by and I risk sinking into melancholy at the thought of winter rains, which seemed to be starting last week in Whistler. Today the sky is clear, though hazy in places, and it looks to be a decent late summer day. The latter might also describe my state of mind, clear but hazy in places.

Last week, after receiving some unexpected tests results, I witnessed my monkey mind running all over the place with thoughts of mortality, of unfinished business and unmet potentials, all of which had little truth but which effectively derailed all thoughts of blogging.

I realized that I am often saddened or depressed by such unfiltered thoughts. Most of them tell me I’m not good enough, not doing enough with my skills and potentials, not the life of the party or even invited to the party!

I vaguely remembered a technique for dealing with the monkey mind that life coach Byron Katie described in her book The Work, which also sounds a lot like Eckhart Tollé’s teachings in Be Here Now, and revolves around challenging one’s thoughts with four simple questions:

—Is it true?
—Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
—How do you react when you believe that thought?
—Who would you be without the thought?

I pondered what these questions might tell me about the state of my inner Self, and the degree to which I may or may not have lost contact with my soul. What would sadness tell me if I considered it an expression of my inner Self?

F. Scott Peck emphasized that “genuine love, transcending neediness, fosters the self-acceptance vital for nurturing others’ (and I should think one’s own) spiritual progress”. It occurs to me that so much of my emotional experience hinges on self-acceptance, on whether OR NOT I believe the cynicism and negativity that too easily pervade my mind. It’s not a question of digging down to how, where or why these unhelpful habits of mind come from so much as it behooves me to watch my mind more carefully, and proactively weed out what no longer serves me (if it ever did).

So how do I do that? Journaling helps. It puts words to paper (or, to iPad, in my case) so that I can step back and regard the thoughts more objectively. This is where Byron Katie’s questions come in handy. By recording my answers in my journal I create a frame of reference with which to compare my future progress. But it won’t help to ask such questions if my answers come from my monkey mind.

In order for my answers to be more authentic or heartfelt I need some way to create a neutral, meditative inner space. (Swimming works a treat for me). But there are many tools available for stilling the mind: breath work being most convenient. Several minutes of calming the breath, by slowly inhaling to the count of four and exhaling to a count of six or more, can effectively calm the mind. If thoughts flood in, we are instructed to just let them float by, noting how insubstantial and temporary they can be.

Sometimes repetition of a centering word like Aum, or phrase such as “all is well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well”, can aid concentration, as can chanting a mantra for peace or healing, and can make one less susceptible to distracting images or ideas.

I sometimes lament “why me?” when confronted with the work needed to clear my inner skies, to generate peace and serenity when those unwelcome clouds try to interfere. The short answer is: I’m the one who benefits most from it! But as Peck insists, if I can’t transcend selfishness and neediness, if I can’t accept myself with patience, tolerance, compassion and love, I’ll be no help to myself or anyone else. It’s no surprise, then, that “Life is difficult” is the first line of M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled. That it’s hard work at times cannot be argued, but as anyone who does the work knows, the rewards far outweigh the effort.

Hence the stash of Justin’s Organic Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter cups I keep on hand wherever I am (even in my carry-on bag). Accept no substitutions!

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

BLOG 170

“In The Road Less Traveled”, M. Scott Peck offers a thought-provoking look at human growth and spiritual development. He contends that embracing discipline—delaying gratification, accepting responsibility, and pursuing truth—is key to solving the challenges that lead to genuine growth. Yet discipline alone is not enough; Peck emphasizes that genuine love, transcending neediness, fosters the self-acceptance vital for nurturing others’ spiritual progress.

(M. Scott Peck The Road Less Traveled)

The other week I was stymied when the theme for my blog about manifesting what I wanted in life ran afoul of Buddhist teachings. It was also refuted by my life experience, i.e. despite my best intentions, a bear wiped out my hummingbird feeder. There was nothing for it but to dive a little deeper into the Buddha’s teachings on the cause of suffering.

“The Buddha taught that life involves dukkha—a Pali word usually translated as “suffering,” but which also means unsatisfactoriness, impermanence, or a deep sense that things are incomplete. This concept forms the core of his Four Noble Truths, which explain why we struggle and how we can find peace.” (AI Overview)

I had forgotten so much of the Buddha’s advice as to feel like I’d made a major discovery when I revisited his teachings on dukkha, a Pali word generally translated as suffering. Yes, I recalled that attachment to pleasurable things/experiences, and the aversion to unpleasantness/disappointment were cited as the cause of suffering, but I hadn’t registered the subtlety with which these cravings pervaded my life.

What gave me pause was the expanded definition of suffering, “which also means unsatisfactoriness, impermanence, or a deep sense that things are incomplete”.

This came as a big AHA! moment because I’d just had a conversation with a friend about this sense of dissatisfaction and/or incompleteness. I had even expressed the idea that one can try to appease this nagging voice that claims something is missing (if one even has a clue what it wants), or somehow tell it to JUST. SHUT. UP.

Little did I know that the latter was not only a distinct possibility, but also the key to ending the patterns and habits that heretofore have been the cause of many, if not all of my problems! I can hardly describe the feeling of elation that this insight gave me. Not only did I better understand the nature of suffering, but in the Buddha’s “noble eightfold path”was given a roadmap to freedom from a lifetime of serving the wrong master, my ego and its cravings.

Back to the internet, I read: “the Law of Attraction amplifies the ego and increases attachment, whereas Buddhism teaches radical letting go and the realization of emptiness.”

In our conversation the other day my friend and I had been skirting around this emptiness, this lack of things to do, places to go, or people to meet. The avoidance of this emptiness could even be disguised as a sense of purpose, but which could more realistically be seen as the avoidance of loneliness, solitude, or ambiguity.

Pema Chödrön, an eminent Buddhist teacher offers this:

“Cool loneliness allows us to look honestly and without aggression at our own minds. We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think we ought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other people think we want to be or ought to be. We give it up and just look directly with compassion and humor at who we are. Then loneliness is no threat and heartache, no punishment.”

In the process of learning to transcend my ego, I need the courage to sit with the uncomfortable feelings of unsatisfactoriness, impermanence, or the sense that things are incomplete. I’m learning give up on the idea that I might in some way fix or change things in order to find peace of mind, to chase discomfort away. The trick is to find peace of mind in the thick of my own racing thoughts and conflicting cravings. I can develop the mental disciplines of mindfulness and meditation to steer me along the noble eightfold path, which happens to be anathema to the law of attraction.

No wonder it’s called the road less traveled!

“In any war, in any country, innocent and powerless people are sacrificed to the power structures. When you turn to the Light and try to attract the Light, you have to realize also that where there is a lot of Light there can be a lot of shadow. The sun is not in the zenith for very long.”

(Swami Sivananda Radha Time to be Holy)

This morning, as I watched the local hummingbird zip in and out of our hyssop flowers, (also known as hummingbird mint) I was reminded of the time we hung a large hummingbird feeder from a tree branch in Whistler. In no time at all a bear tore it down and made short work of whatever was in it, irreparably damaging the feeder while he or she was at it.

There should be some take-away from that little incident, aside from the obvious lesson not to hang hummingbird feeders in bear country, because it rather refutes my theme for today’s blog, which centered on how “like attracts like” or “as we sow, so shall we reap”.

We planted hyssop and scarlet sage to attract hummingbirds to our deck in West Vancouver, and at least in that we succeeded. Most days I get a fleeting glimpse of the tiny bird which, spiritually speaking, is said to symbolize “joy, resilience, and the sweetness of life. Because of its incredible speed, ability to hover, and vibrant energy, it is widely viewed as an uplifting messenger of hope, emotional renewal, and a gentle connection to the spiritual realm.” (AI Overview)

Instead, I’m apparently being given the message that no good deed goes unpunished. Attempt to feed hummingbirds and you might attract other bad-mannered honey predators. Thus derailed from my original theme, (hence no blog this past week) I sat on the topic for a few more days, reluctant to give up on what I thought to be a good idea, but aware that I had been focusing on only one side of a topic that might be more meaningful if I explored the idea that, as Swami Radha said, where there’s a lot of light there can also be a lot of shadow.

How to reconcile that truth with my original idea, also true, that by visualizing and in some way enacting (e.g. planting hyssop), we attract what we want more of in our lives?

The main message of James Allen’s 1903 classic As a Man Thinketh is that “your thoughts shape your life, character, and destiny. What you think internally directly creates your external circumstances, meaning you must take total responsibility for your mental state if you wish to change your experience of the world that surrounds you”. He describes mind as a garden; you can tend it with good thoughts or let bad weeds grow. By that logic, I’m the arbiter of my experience, whether good or bad, including how I interpret the experience of having a bear destroy my bird feeder.

Likewise, however I frame life events/experiences is where the real power lies. Too often I take an undesirable outcome and label it “bad”, e.g. label a hungry bear as a bad-mannered honey predator. I think most of us are quite capable of ascribing good outcomes to some effort we have made, singularly or in cooperation with other people, and carrying forward positive thoughts/associations until someone or something disrupts the ideal trajectory.

The greater challenge is therefore flipping negative outcomes/interpretations into their opposite. It needn’t even be a matter of extremes.

How often during the day do I run into some obstacle or complication and make the effort to see it as a challenge to overcome, or as an opportunity for something entirely different to happen? To me that requires true creativity, the imagination and resilience to turn lemons into lemonade.

To make lemonade palatable one generally needs to add some kind of sweetener. Could a sense of gratitude be that mental sweetener? Having the humility to count one’s blessings while simultaneously failing to realize a goal, ideal or dream? Having managed to do that the odd time, I can vouch for it being a very satisfying feeling.

And when I can’t see the silver lining, I can resort to black humour as a backup plan:

“If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.” — Steven Wright.

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