After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

I have been reading a book by Jack Kornfield called "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry". Jack was the author of another book called "A Path with Heart" that was a huge influence on my spiritual path many years ago, and I'm finding this other book to be equally profound. He speaks to my early experiences with spiritual awakening, helping me better understand some of what I experienced in the past as well as my current spiritual path. After we have a profound, blissful, ecstatic spiritual experience, what next? His answer - do the laundry. The mundane affairs of life become our spiritual practice.

If we have felt the bliss of awakening to the way things really are, our next task is not to live in that state of bliss. It is to take the magic we have experienced and bring it into our lives. Having climbed the mountain and seen the view, we then need to come down the mountain to live our lives. But we can also share a bit of the light we've been given. That doesn't mean we have to preach it (though we can); it means we simply live and let that light shine through us. We embrace the mundane and live our lives with the fresh perspective we have been given.

There is so much I love about the book, but I'll just share a couple of pieces. In speaking about flexibility of mind and heart, Jack relates an experience he had with one of his early spiritual teachers:

The dogmatic and rigid qualities of religious fervor give way to the middle path, with a wise presence that is neither indulgent nor fearful.

My teacher Ajahn Chah demonstrated this flexibility when he was most inconsistent, contradicting things he had previously said, reversing teachings he had earlier emphasized. When this was pointed out to him by a frustrated student (me), Ajahn Chah laughed. "It's like this," he said. "There is a road I know well, but it can be foggy or dark. When I see someone traveling this road about to fall in a ditch or get lost in a sidetrack on the right-hand side, I call out, 'Go to the left.' Similarly, if I see someone about to fall in a ditch or get lost in a sidetrack on the left-hand side, I call out, 'Go to the right.' That's all I do when I teach. Whenever you get caught, I say, 'Let go of that too.' "

For years before I left the church of my childhood, I felt that church leaders painted with too broad a brush. At the time, I thought it was a necessary aspect of trying to teach so many people at once, but I think it also comes from a codified creed that begins to feel rigid as soon as it has been written down. Having the flexibility to change your teachings to suit the circumstances of your hearer(s) feels so liberating to me. I love how one yoga teacher handled that - from another part of the book:

Religious traditions often warn us about the dangers of entanglement with the senses, and it is true that we can become overly attached and identified with this body and its pleasures. Our culture has exploited this to an extreme. But in spiritual circles the opposite danger of aversion, fear, and unconsciousness is perhaps even more common. There is, as the Buddha suggests, a middle path to be found in each of our lives. One yoga teacher paused in the midst of teaching a difficult stretch to caution her students, "You strivers here, relax. And you sensualists, straighten up."

Speaking to an entire class, this woman recognized the diversity of personalities among her hearers and tailored her message to the specific tendencies of students. In my early religion, we often heard encouragements to do more, to be of greater service, to strive to be better, etc. Those of us who were already trying hard, sometimes at the edge of exhaustion, would hear these messages and feel burdened. But we kept trying. No doubt there are many who need to hear those messages, but I wasn't one of them. Or maybe I was when I was very young, but I reached a point where I didn't need those messages anymore. But they just kept coming. It would have been nice if we had had more flexibility to call out, "go left" or "go right" instead of "work harder".

Here's another gem from the book:

Zen teacher Edward Espe Brown is the author of many Zen-inspired cookbooks, beginning with The Tassajara Bread Book. Through describing his kitchen practice, he writes of the truths of the heart.

When I first started cooking at Tassajara, I had a problem. I couldn't get my biscuits to come out the way they were supposed to. I'd follow a recipe and try variations, but nothing worked. These biscuits just didn't measure up.

Growing up I had made two kinds of biscuits. One was from Bisquick and other from Pillsbury. For the Bisquick you added milk in the mix and then blobbed the dough in spoonfuls onto the pan - you didn't even need to roll them out. The biscuits from Pillsbury came in kind of a cardboard can. You rapped the can on the corner of the counter and it popped open. Then you twisted the can open more, put the premade biscuits on a pan, and baked them. I really liked those Pillsbury biscuits. Isn't that what biscuits should taste like? Mine weren't coming out right.

It's wonderful and amazing the ideas we get about what biscuits should taste like, or what a life should look like. Compared to what? Canned biscuits from Pillsbury? Leave It to Beaver? People who ate my biscuits would extoll their virtues, eating one after another, but to me these perfectly good biscuits just weren't right.

Finally one day came a shifting-into-place, an awakening. "Not right" compared to what? Oh, my word, I'd been trying to make canned Pillsbury biscuits! Then came an exquisite moment of actually tasting my biscuits without comparing them to some previously hidden standard. They were wheaty, flaky, buttery, sunny, earthy, real. They were incomparably alive - in fact, much more satisfying than any memory. 

These occasions can be so stunning, so liberating, these moments when you realize your life is just fine as it is, thank you. Only the insidious comparison to a beautifully prepared, beautifully packaged product made it seem insufficient. Trying to produce a biscuit - a life - with no dirty bowls, no messy feelings, no depression, no anger, was so frustrating. Then savoring, actually tasting the present moment of experience - how much more complex and multifaceted. How unfathomable.

As Zen students we spent years trying to make it look right, trying to cover the faults, conceal the messes. We knew what the Bisquick Zen student looked like: calm, buoyant, cheerful, energetic, deep, profound. Our motto, as one of my friends said, was, "looking good." We've all done it, trying to look good as a husband, a wife or parent. Trying to attain perfection. Trying to make Pillsbury biscuits.

Well, to heck with it, I say. Wake up and smell the coffee. How about some good old home cooking, the biscuits of today.

When we accept our place in the mandala of the whole, we come back to just where we are. And in this is found joy, ease, simplicity, and courage, and what T.S. Eliot calls the freedom "to care and not to care." 

Pretty cool, huh? That's just a small sample. This book is going to be another of my spiritual staples. I love Jack's perspective on life and his ability to convey its essence with simplicity and love.

If you get a chance to read the book, let me know what you think. If it doesn't work for you, that's ok. I think it's beautiful, the work of a beautiful soul. Thanks, Jack, for casting a bit of light along my path.

Connecting With Our Source

 I think I'm finally beginning to understand what meditation is all about.

When I was a kid, I learned to meditate in a karate class. We were taught a very simple method, and I took it as the goal of meditation for many years. We were taught to empty our minds of all thought. That's a useful, if impossible, exercise. It can give you a bit more control of your mind as you develop some mental discipline through the effort. But as it's ultimately impossible, emptying the mind can't be the true objective.

Many years later, I found unbelievable peace through meditation. It healed me like no other practice had done before. And for a while, I thought that peace was the objective. Peace is a wonderful product of meditation - sometimes. But there's no guarantee you'll feel peace. And if we can't guarantee the result, perhaps peace isn't the real purpose of meditation either.

At other times in meditation, I have experienced intense bliss. This seems like a great outcome, but like peace, I can't make it stay around. So bliss probably isn't the real objective either.

I now believe that the objective of meditation is simply bringing our awareness to the source of our awareness. When I do that, I plug into that Source, which seems to be both me and much larger than me. And that practice of connecting with this Source is liberating and empowering.

It reminds me that I am not this limited body in which I find myself. It reminds me that I am connected to a much wider reality than what I experience every day. And it infuses me with a love, a joy, and a peace that is beyond anything I can describe. While this practice gives me the power to distance myself from my thoughts and emotions, I am also enabled to live more fully present, accepting every moment as it comes without judgment. Life becomes easier somehow. And the states of bliss and peace I described earlier start to become a more common occurrence. Though they are not the objective of meditation, they are its natural fruits.

Questions like "who am I?" can be extremely powerful in directing our attention during meditation. Such questions may seem obvious to the mind, which will spit back any number of answers without any trouble. But if we move beyond the mind's easy answers, recognizing how transient those answers are, we begin to see how impossible it is to actually answer the question. If we persevere, allowing the uncertainty and wonder of our nature and existence to work upon us, we begin to come toward the seat of consciousness itself. We begin to approach our Source.

As we get used to it, we can learn to touch the Source by simply turning our attention inward. It becomes easier to do. And we start to see how we are like branches on a tree. Most of the time, our attention is focused outward. But if we look back, we recognize how connected we are to everything else. We see that by harming our fellow branches, we're ultimately harming ourselves ... because we're all one tree. And we can more easily take in the life-giving sap that's always flowing into us, but which we're usually too distracted to notice, process, and appreciate. We soak in the love that's all around us, and we naturally become better, more patient, more kind, more compassionate. Life becomes our friend instead of our enemy. And we rest in the present moment.

This is the peace that transcends all understanding that Jesus (John 14:27) and Paul (Philipians 4:7) talked about. But it doesn't come by focusing on peace or by actively seeking it. It comes through awareness, insight, and surrender. It comes by understanding who and what we truly are as we connect with our Source.

Letting Go of our Garbage

There is a man in Alachua, Florida named Mickey Singer. I found him through one of his books called "The Surrender Experiment", and I really resonated with him. I was so drawn to his experiences that I decided to visit him at his "Temple of the Universe" a few months ago. I enjoyed hearing him speak, and then spoke to him briefly in private. He's a fascinating guy. Since the pandemic started, he has been posting his talks on his website. I listened to one of his recent talks, and it inspired me to write the following. To be fair, most of what follows came from Mickey. I am paraphrasing some of what he said and summarizing the main ideas that spoke to me. Hopefully they'll be useful to someone else too.

Temple of the Universe in Alachua, Florida 

Every single thing that happens to us is for our benefit if we are willing to let go and enjoy the ride. It's only when we 1) cling to what we want or 2) resist what we don't want that our lives become a living hell.

By letting go, we allow ourselves to live in the moment. Each action we take becomes an end unto itself. We cease to work for money - we work for the sake of the work we're doing. We cease to interact with loved ones for what we can get out of the relationship - we interact with them for the sake of the interaction. We cease to look for ends and results other than the experience we are having at the moment.

And this can be fulfilling when we recognize that every experience we have makes us a better person. If it's a pleasant experience, we enjoy the pleasantness. If it's an unpleasant experience, we open to it and grow from the challenge it presents.

No more struggle. Life becomes peaceful. The world becomes friendly. There are no more enemies. Every one and every thing that touches our lives works for our good (Romans 8:28) because we use every experience to become a greater being. Everything in the world becomes God to us, lifting us up and helping us reach our full potential.

So it really comes down to letting go and living in the moment. But how do we let go? We have to learn to relax in the midst of trouble. And meditation is a great tool for helping us do that. It can train us to become more conscious and aware of everything that's going on regardless of circumstance.

With this combination of focus and relaxation, a kind of intense state of rest, we can begin to see clearly as garbage we have stored in our psyches begins to come up. As it arises, we can become conscious enough to look at it without getting mixed up in it. We watch it do its thing, and by not investing it with our energy, we begin to let it go.

The practice of focusing our attention on something other than our minds gives us the ability to distance ourselves from the mental chatter when our emotions start to go crazy because something happens that triggers the garbage we have stored inside. Meditation is training for the real spiritual/psychological work that happens when life gets hard. It give us the tools to let go. It enables us to become comfortable being uncomfortable. We recognize when we're not ok - and we're ok with that.

It might take many experiences with a single piece of garbage, whatever it is, before we're able to release it. It could be a traumatic experience in our past or a fear of something that might happen in the future. But whatever it is, if we keep at it, it will eventually disappear. And piece by piece, we will gradually remove the sewage in our psyches, and having cleansed our souls, we'll begin to live more deeply and authentically. Our entire lives can become free, and we simply live life instead of doing battle with it.

Falling Awake

Waking up spiritually is a falling awake. It's not about effort. It's more about easing into it. Like you're falling asleep - except you're waking up. Waking to life as it is, without wishing it to be other than it is.

We're all so lost in our own stories. Stories about how life should be. Waking up is a radical kind of acceptance, a submission to life just as it is, and a dropping of all the stories and the story-making.

Acceptance and surrender are at the root of freedom from suffering. But acceptance of what is doesn't mean we can't act to make things better. It just means we start with a clear view of what is, and we accept whatever comes, whether we succeed in our efforts or not. We let go of the results.

True happiness and freedom come from choosing what we have, loving our life, regardless of our circumstances. Being happy with what we have instead of wanting what we don't have.

The Indwelling Presence

I recently rediscovered some of the magic I found a few years ago when I first began meditating. A couple of months ago, I started re-reading Eckhart Tolle's book "The Power of Now". That book was an early inspiration for me, so I thought I'd go back to it and see if it could help me again. Early on in the book, Eckhart talks about a feeling of presence. Somehow, the words he used invited me to open a gate inside myself that I didn't realize was closed. As I focused on this 'presence', I felt something well up in me - a powerful sense of being, of aliveness. In its early stages, it often feels like tingling in my fingers and toes that slowly spreads to the rest of my body. But sometimes it rushes in quickly, like it did a few weeks ago. Focusing on the idea of a deep, indwelling 'presence' seems to be what did it for me that time.

In that state, everything starts to make more sense. Everything feels more connected and joyful. And everything seems more beautiful and radiant. I think maybe everything is always radiating, but I'm usually too distracted to notice. But somehow, by tapping into this presence inside of me, I was able to tear aside a curtain that was obscuring the depth of beauty in the reality all around me. And everything just glowed.

For about a week after my initial experience with it a couple months ago, I was able to tap into that presence in ordinary moments throughout the day. I didn't have to have my eyes closed. I didn't have to focus on my breathing. I didn't have to be meditating in any conventional sense - in fact, I think meditation, as I usually understand it, would be a distraction. I just opened to it, and I became intensely aware, intensely present, and intensely alive.

Meditation isn't what opened this experience to me. Not exactly. Meditation was more like a practice, or exercise of a muscle, that paved the way for the experience. In meditation, I focus on the breath, and I begin to distance my conscious awareness from the mental chatter in my mind. I begin to see clearly that I am not my thoughts or my emotions. I am deeper than them. They only feel like me when I allow them to sweep me up and make me feel lost inside of them. Meditation allows me to practice stepping outside of them and seeing them for what they are - ephemeral experiences that arise and fall like waves in the ocean. None of them stay for long unless I empower them. When I just watch them, they come and go like anything else in life.

When I meditate, I often use some object (typically the breath, but it could be something else) as a point of focus. But unless I let go of that object, I'm still stuck in a mental choke hold. The experience I'm describing requires an openness that goes beyond mental conceptions. Meditation by itself didn't unlock the experience for me. But armed with the practice of meditation, somehow all it took was a trigger for me to open up and fall out of myself. That's what it feels like happened, and yet, I think the 'self' I fell out of was just another ephemeral illusion. I fell into an ocean that is both my true self and larger than myself. I came home.

I think this is true meditation. I might start with an object, but when I let go of all mental constructs, I can fully wake up. And then my entire life becomes meditation. I meditate as I sit quietly, but I also meditate as I engage in conversations and activities. I start to live every aspect of my life fully awake.

For about a week, I could enter that state whenever I wanted. Then it faded. Kind of like it did a few years ago. I guess that makes me a spiritual yo-yo. Maybe that's ok. Ups and downs are part of life, right? Last week, I found the magic again with the help of Jack Kornfield, another one of my early inspirations. His book "A Path With Heart" was hugely transformational for me. In the last couple of weeks, I have been listening to some of his audio recordings, inspired by a sense that he has something I need. It's not so much what he says, but his presence, his love, his generosity of heart that I soak up while I listen to him. A few days ago, inspired by one of his podcasts, I had an incredible experience that felt every bit as powerful as my early magical experiences years ago. In some ways, it was more profound than the experiences I describe above from a couple of months ago. My wife noticed how happy I was that morning and most of the day. It lifted her up too. And by dinner time that day, I was depressed. 😊

It's funny now, but at the time, it was pretty frustrating. I experienced a massive emotional or spiritual swing in a 12-hour period, and there was nothing I could do about it. Thankfully, the next day was up again. I can't avoid the down times, so I try to accept them. And they are often wonderful catalysts for growth. While they're not pleasant, I believe it's possible to maintain a deep peace and equanimity in the midst of them that allows us to face our darkness with gentle curiosity and loving kindness.

I've had a concept growing in my mind recently, inspired by the ever-changing nature of reality, that maybe I have often used my spiritual experiences throughout life to fix what I perceive to be wrong in my life so that I can get back to living my life the way I want. But what I usually perceive to be my 'life' is not a static thing to come back to. Nor is my desired lifestyle necessarily a happy one. My perspective is somehow backwards. I sense a shift may be possible in which I begin to live from my spiritual nature and treat my physical life as a place I'm only visiting for a few years. I think I can begin to view the magical state as my true home, and my indwelling presence as my true life, while my physical body is just something I rent once in a while.

Perhaps with practice, the magical state I have described can become my 'normal' state. And my previously normal state of mental obscurity will become a thing of the past, remembered as something like a dream from which I have awoken.

Matthieu Ricard

I heard the following quote recently:

In clinging to the cramped universe of the ego, we have a tendency to be concerned exclusively with ourselves. The least setback upsets and discourages us. We are obsessed with our success, our failure, our hopes, and our anxieties, and thereby give happiness every opportunity to elude us. The narrow world of the self is like a glass of water into which a handful of salt is thrown - the water becomes undrinkable. If, on the other hand, we breach the barriers of the self and the mind becomes a vast lake, that same handful of salt will have no effect on its taste. ... If the ego were really our deepest essence, it would be easy to understand our apprehension about dropping it. But if it is merely an illusion, ridding ourselves of it is not ripping the heart out of our being, but simply opening our eyes.

- Matthieu Ricard

Some of My Spiritual Experiences

I wrote the following a few months ago in response to a request from my youngest daughter. She was working on a project for her youth program at church, and she asked family members to share stories of personal faith experiences. This is my attempt to capture some of the spiritual experiences I have had up to this point in my life.

Childhood

When I was really young, I used to sometimes sit by myself and sort of zone out. I'd think about anything and nothing. I remember one time sitting in the car by myself while it was parked at our house. I was in the passenger seat, waiting for my mom to drive me somewhere. I remember staring out the window, letting my thoughts go wherever they wanted, when I saw little dots of light racing around my field of view. I realize now that what I saw was the shadow of blood cells in my eyes projected onto my retina while staring at the blue sky (yes, I am a geek). But at the time, it seemed so magical. Like I could see into a special, hidden world. And I remember feeling a connection to something. I often felt peaceful when I was alone with my thoughts, but I couldn't really explain why I felt that way or what it was that I was doing that caused me to feel that way.

A simulation of the 'blue sky' effect I talk about above

Look closely ... white dots are moving through the blue background

Teenage Years

When I was a teenager, I had some powerful spiritual experiences that were very formative for me. One of these happened at a youth camp called Especially for Youth (EFY). I think this was the summer I was 16 years old.

The whole week had been amazing. I remember during check-in, I gave up my room twice because each time I got to my room, my roommate-to-be had a friend with him, and they wanted to room together. So both times, the pair of friends asked me if I would mind swapping rooms. I was in Indianapolis. I knew almost no one there. I had nowhere I needed to be, so I said sure. Both times.

I could have felt exasperated the second time it happened, but somehow, I just laughed and went with the flow. Each time, we had to go to the registration desk to swap keys so they had a record of where everyone was. The second time I did it, the people at the desk laughed when they saw me. But I didn't mind. I laughed too.

That initial experience was indicative of the entire week. Somehow, I had an incredibly good attitude about everything that week. I had no prior attachments molding my behavior. I was out on my own, with none of my friends around. And everything was new. Like I was a brand-new baby. I could choose whatever I wanted. I could choose where I went, who I talked with, and what my attitude would be. And I talked with everyone and had a really fun time. This feeling of having no attachments, no prior history, and total freedom to choose my response was incredibly liberating. And it gave me a lot of confidence that I could be whatever I wanted to be. All I had to do was let go.

When I got to my third room, I met my roommate, who, thankfully, let me stay, and I started to get to know the other guys in my group. There were about 20 or 30 boys in our group, and we were led by a counselor who was pretty animated and fun. We had a great time. We played and laughed and flirted with girls. Every night, we'd hang out in a lounge area at the end of our hall. I remember we entertained each other with something called "helping hands" where two people would make up one character. One person would be the character's body and face, and the other would be the character's arms. In another 'game', we drew upside-down faces on our chins and, propping ourselves upside down with a hat covering the upper part of our faces, we'd mess around, telling jokes and stupid stories, and generally acting like idiots. Watching someone's upside-down chin-face try to frown to simulate a smile, then break into laughter that looked like the weirdest scowl I'd ever seen, was hilarious. We laughed a lot in that lounge. In fact, I don't think I had ever laughed that hard in my life up to that point. A lot of this stuff was instigated by our counselor, but we all got into it. We ended up doing a skit at the talent show later in the week, recreating some of the stupid stuff we had done as a group in that lounge. It was a crazy fun week. And we grew really close as a group.

At the end of the week, all 20 or 30 of us were sitting in a small classroom, listening to a devotional given by our counselor. It was the lead-in to what was supposed to be the spiritual highlight of the week -- a testimony meeting. I don't have any memory of what our counselor said. But I do remember sort of sinking into myself and, looking around, I watched the world around me change. I seemed to be listening to an inner voice that week. A voice that had always been there, but that was largely drowned out by my fears and insecurities. When I found the courage to be completely and authentically myself, the voice became clear, and I listened to the voice and accepted it without question or doubt. Now, at the end of this magical week, I found myself transforming in a deeply profound way. And the world itself was transforming. Or perhaps I was beginning to see it clearly for the first time in my life.

There was a subtle shift in the air. Or in the way the air looked. Like I could see ripples in the air that were distorting my vision. But those ripples had always been there. I had just never seen them before. Now that I could see them, I could sort of see through them. And the world seemed more clear. And vibrant. And alive.

I looked around at my friends. I hadn't known any of them before the week started. But we had had some great times. And I considered them friends. And as I looked at them, it seemed to me that I could see into their hearts. Or their souls. I kind of saw through them. I know this all sounds mystical and magical. And probably unbelievable. But it's what I experienced. Maybe I was deluded. But it seemed to be one of the most real things I had ever felt. There were three of the boys in particular whose hearts/souls stood out to me. As I looked at them, I got the distinct impression that I knew them. Not from the week at EFY. But before. Before any of us had been born.

I raised my hand and asked if I could say something. I told the group a little of what I had just seen. And I told them that I had the distinct impression that some of us knew each other before this life. I mentioned the three boys by name who had stood out to me. I don't know why I had the courage to say what I did. Normally, I would have balked at the idea of saying something so bold and outlandish. But I was listening to that inner voice that week and somehow, I felt no fear. I just said what I felt I should say.

When the devotional ended, I went to a drinking fountain in the hall to get some water. When I looked up, those three boys were standing there. Each one of them told me they had felt the same thing. Whether they felt that way before I said anything, after I said something, or simply felt pressured into saying they felt it, I don't know. But I took it as a confirmation of what I had felt.

I had many other spiritual experiences in my later teenage years. These experiences made me feel connected to something larger than myself. Magical experiences that took me out of myself and, at the same time, made me feel more truly myself than any other time in my life. Some of these experiences made me want to laugh and shout. They filled me with energy and excitement. I felt a fire inside me that seemed to make everything beautiful and joyful. Other times, the experiences were peaceful and calming. They made me want to just sit quietly and soak it all in. But they always connected me to something. Something big and beautiful. Something loving and accepting.

One of these experiences led me to decide to attend college at Brigham Young University (BYU). The decision was based on a feeling I had during a campus visit in my senior year of high school. A feeling that I was coming home. I felt like BYU was the right place for me. And so I went.

Young Adulthood

And BYU was a great place for me. I grew into adulthood there and really began to find myself. I had some wonderfully supportive people around me, and I learned a lot. About myself. About my future profession. And about my religion. And after graduation, I took those lessons with me and continued to learn about all three of those areas of my life. In fact, I have never stopped learning about them.

In the middle of my education at BYU, I went on a mission for the LDS church in Germany. Serving a mission was one of the hardest things I have ever done. It was painful at times - physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I was physically ill quite a lot. At one point, I thought I would be sent home because of my illness. But with some help from my parents, my Mission President, and my companions, I worked through the illness well enough to continue my mission for two full years.

During those years, I had some awesome spiritual experiences. One that stands out in my mind happened during a really rough time near the beginning of my mission. I had been in Germany almost four months, and I knew my companion was going home soon. I was feeling pretty overwhelmed because a lot of older missionaries were going home, and a lot of new missionaries were coming. The mission's cohort was becoming younger and younger. And even though I had only been there for four months, I felt like I was going to become a senior companion to someone younger than me and possibly train someone brand new.

It turned out I was right. On both counts. And it was hard taking on that much responsibility with so little experience. But even before it happened, and before I knew for sure that it would happen, I felt really inadequate about the possibility. I spoke the language pretty well, better than most my age, but not well enough to train someone. I didn't even feel competent to be the leader in a companionship, having someone else rely on my language skills and my knowledge of missionary work to guide the work we would do. But I felt strongly that it was coming, so I struggled with my feelings of inadequacy.

One night, I was feeling particularly despondent. I don't know if something specific happened that day that prompted my feeling. It's very likely. But whatever it was, what I remember most vividly was the despair I felt and the hopelessness that seemed to envelop me. I knelt down next to my bed and began to pray. I poured my heart out to God and told Him how weak and hopeless I felt. I asked Him for help. I don't remember what else I said. At some point, in the middle of my prayer, I felt this intense release. Like the tension that had been building in me had suddenly found an outlet and, like a dam breaking, the pressure was gone almost instantly.

Into my heart poured a light that was so incredibly peaceful and relaxing. I seem to remember kneeling there and suddenly feeling every muscle in my body instantly relax. I seemed to hear a voice that calmed me deeply, but I don't remember if there were any words to the voice or what it might have said. And, though I felt nothing physical, I could have sworn there was a hand on my shoulder, like an angel was there, giving me strength.

I have come to believe that sometimes, we simply slide into a spiritual connection. Other times, we unknowingly fight it until we're so overwhelmed that we crack, like I did that night in Germany. We protect ourselves from connection by building a cocoon around ourselves. Most often, I think this comes about by fear, though maybe there are other motivations that cause us to try to protect ourselves. But when we do, the world begins to bear down on that cocoon until we reach a point of desperation and we finally crack. Then the light begins to pour in and we find what we were looking for, but were unknowingly avoiding. Connection.

We sometimes have powerful spiritual experiences as we're pushed to the limits of our endurance. But I find it much more enjoyable to slide into that connection voluntarily. Humility and vulnerability go a long way here. We have to move beyond our own egos in order to experience that connection in a deep and fulfilling way.

Mature Adulthood

As I grew older in adulthood, having married and become a father, I found my spiritual experiences coming less frequently. I could sometimes feel a connection to something during quiet times while reading scriptures or praying. But the weight of the world bore down on me and seemed to drive away the magic. I think this came from the stress of providing financially for a family and trying to give my wife and kids the best of me. I was often stretched thin and, burdened by stress and fear, I found myself longing for the connection I had often felt when I was younger. Church, which had previously been something of a catalyst for those experiences, more often felt like a burden than an asset. And though I clung to it for many years, I eventually came to see that what had once helped me find so much connection to God was now limiting me.

I didn't fully realize this until I found my connection again. But when I found it in the spring of 2014, it felt like coming home. And I learned to let go of what was holding me back.

Experiencing the connection felt very familiar, but it was facilitated by a different method than I was used to. And the fact that this method was so powerful caused me to question many things I had previously held inviolate. The method was centered around meditation, but I realize now that it was very similar to what I had experienced during my most powerful prayers. And it was similar to what I had experienced as a young child during quiet times of reflection. A new world began to open up to me where even the most ordinary things could be infused with life, luster, and beauty. The whole world seemed to be teeming with life and light and love. And love seemed to be at the foundation of it all. But the oddest thing of all was that I experienced all of this without any reference to God, or any calling upon a Deity.

The process of accepting this new method for experiencing a spiritual connection was long and challenging. It involved transitioning away from the church, which was probably the most difficult part. But as I did when I was young, I found my inner voice. And I found the courage to follow it. And in doing so, I found the strength to explore my new landscape. And I found greater clarity than I had ever found before in my life. I think that clarity was facilitated by a rare authenticity and sincerity. Something I have experienced to a large degree at various times, like that week at EFY, but probably not quite as fully as I experienced it a few years ago as a fully grown man.

It's difficult to pinpoint a specific spiritual experience during this time of exploration because my life became a string of powerful experiences, one day after another. No single day stands out among the rest. But on a typical day, I would enter into a state of calm reflection until my mind became completely placid, like the waters of a calm lake. I would feel a deep connection to something beautiful and expansive. Something that seemed to have infinite love and patience. And as I connected with it, which happened consistently and reliably, some of that love and patience distilled into me, and I became more and more like the thing I was connecting with. Days would go by where it seemed my patience was infinite. Nothing could rattle me. I was at peace with myself and the world around me. And I felt a love inside of me that started with me (I accepted and loved myself just as I was) and gradually extended to encompass everything around me. And this love, which I seemed to be swimming in, also became a powerful source of healing for me, both physically and spiritually.

Like many things in life, my spiritual practice peaked, then fell off again as the stress of life began to crowd out my time of meditation and reflection. And as the practice fell away, old habitual thought patterns began to reassert themselves, and I lost some of the spiritual high I had achieved.

Then, about a year or two after my transition, I took a business trip during which I had a lot of opportunities to reflect. As I meditated that week, I began to lean into some uncomfortable feelings and emotions. The feeling that stands out most in my mind is loneliness. I began to see that I was terribly alone. Being away from my family, I was naturally missing them, but there was something more than that. I had once been connected to something incredible, and I had lost much of that connection. As I leaned into the feeling of loneliness and separateness, opening myself to the sensations and sorrow associated with those feelings, I found that connection re-established in a very powerful way. It was almost instantaneous. As if my vulnerability had been the key that unlocked the door separating me from this loving, expansive something. And my soul expanded like it hadn't done in several months. Maybe a year. It felt like whatever was out there was right there, always within reach, accessible anytime I woke up and realized who I really was and how I related to the world. When I began to breathe in the love that was all around me, I became connected to that love. And I remembered that love was my true home. My origin. The essence of my being. And I came home.

I have since cycled at least once more through a spiritual high and low. And I'm happy to say the lows are getting higher over time. I feel like I have no idea where I am headed, but I'm very happy about where my path has been taking me. I don't know where it will take me next, but I feel a deep sense of faith and trust that the path is good. And though I can't see very far ahead, I feel like I'll know where to step if I just pay attention.

Based on my recent experiences, I think maybe that's the essence of spirituality. Attention. Awareness. Consciousness. Built upon a foundation of love and compassion. And all of that leads to connection.

Love is central to it all. And I think maybe it's who we really are. If God is love (1 John 4:8,16), and we are children of God, then ... maybe we are love. And if love is all around us, then we're all deeply connected. Much more deeply, I now believe, than I had ever supposed as a child or a young man. If we are all made of love and we're all surrounded by love, then we're all swimming in the same stuff. And it's the same primordial stuff that makes us who we are. So we're all connected. And that connection, which already exists, seems to be the only thing the soul really craves.

So we already have everything we need (connection). We already are everything we need to be (love). All we need to do is wake up and see it.

Spirituality without Religion

A few years ago, I left the church I grew up in. For a while afterward, I sometimes wondered what that would mean for me as far as religion goes. I never had a strong desire to join a new church, but I did sometimes wonder if I should join a community that practiced meditation. I went to a Zen Center nearby a few times, and while it was great in a lot of ways, it didn't really click for me.

I'm not against the idea of joining a group again at some point, but I'm pretty happy with my independent spiritual journey for now.

That probably seems weird to some of you. What does spirituality mean without religion?

Religion is a conduit for spirituality. A spiritual connection to something outside yourself is an individual experience. If many people make a connection in some joint exercise, that can be really cool. But it isn't necessary.

Spirituality without religion is a bit like education without school. It would be ridiculous to suppose that education can't occur outside of school. I don't go to school anymore, but I learn new things all the time. And while I don't associate myself with a religion anymore, I often feel a spiritual connection to something outside myself.

Maybe that's ok. And maybe someday, I'll join a community of like-minded practitioners and see if that can help me progress even more. Or maybe not. We'll see.

The Problem of Evil

In Christianity, and any monotheistic religion that worships an all-powerful God, there is a philosophical problem known as The Problem of Evil. It asks the question: if God is benevolent, all-knowing, and all-powerful, how can there be evil in the world? The debate calls into question the existence of such a God.

It's an old question, and I don't have anything new to add, so I'm not going to argue either for or against the existence of an omnipotent God. But I do have a slightly different take on the Problem of Evil as it's typically formulated.

The Problem of Evil

I used to see things almost entirely in terms of good and evil. Everything was colored by that paradigm. Running beneath everything I experienced, felt, or thought, was an ever-present conflict between good and evil. Naturally, I pictured myself on the side of good most of the time. Occasionally, I would recognize that I had done something wrong, feel a bit guilty, and try to get myself back on the good side as quickly as possible. Everything outside the little bubble of what I defined as good was tainted with a twinge of evil. And a few things were just purely evil. Deeply dark and horrific.

Recently, I've discovered a new problem of evil. One that doesn't have anything to do with God. One that simply recognizes that the concept of evil itself is problematic. Not that evil is a problem. The concept that evil exists is a problem.

In recent years, I've begun to see the world through a different lens. One that doesn't require the existence of evil. This probably seems crazy. It did to me for a while. And sometimes, I still think I'm a bit nuts. But I'll try to explain my thinking, and you can decide if it makes any sense.

When I try to imagine the most evil thing possible, I think of acts of hate. Murder, whether on an individual or a massive scale, seems pretty horrific. I can't think of anything darker than that, so let's use that as an example.

Murder

When someone kills someone else, my tendency used to be to judge that person. I would wish for justice and its associated pain so the murderer couldn't be said to have gotten away with it, and so he/she could feel just a bit of what his/her victim(s) and their friends and family must have felt or are still feeling. That seems just.

But now when I think of a murder, I think less of judgment. My tendency is to ask why.

Why did they kill that person?

• It could be rage. There could be a history between the murderer and the victim. That history could be complicated, but rivalries and grudges are rarely one-sided. Perhaps there was some offense given by the victim that would allow us to make some sense of the rage.
• It could be mental illness. The murderer might be psychologically unhinged. How did that happen? Mental illness is complicated, but it likely comes in some measure from some painful experience(s) in the person's past.
• Or maybe the act came about through some twisted philosophy. Some belief system that justified the act in the murderer's mind. How did that philosophy get stuck in their head? Were they the victim of some intellectual abuse or cultural momentum that was itself a product of abuse or pain?

Maybe there are other reasons, but in all of my musing, I fail to find any motivation for murder that I can properly call evil. Maybe I'm just missing something, but I'm inclined to think that the murderer must have suffered in order to bring them to the point where they were willing to take someone else's life. I'm pretty confident that no one is born with the inclination to kill. And if that's true, that the murderer suffered, then the appropriate response is compassion, not judgment.

Of course, it's natural to feel compassion for the victim and their friends and family. That's where the suffering is the most obvious. And perhaps that's why it's easy to judge the murderer. Clearly, that suffering wouldn't exist if the murderer hadn't acted. But perhaps there is hidden suffering in the murderer's past that could evoke some compassion if only we understood it.

Judgment

Feeling compassion for a murderer doesn't mean I condone the act. Society has a right and a duty to hold people accountable for actions that take away the rights and freedoms of others. So I'm not saying there shouldn't be justice or accountability. The proper response is likely to imprison or otherwise punish the crime. If nothing else, this should hopefully deter future crime of a similar nature.

Lady Justice holding the Scales of Justice

Unfortunately, our punitive system of justice doesn't seem to do much good for the criminal. Shutting them out from society and placing them in a prison subculture typically doesn't do much to reform an individual. They often feel justified in further acts of crime as they probably feel that society has cast them out. Maybe there is a better way of dealing with crime, but I don't know what it is. Until we find a better way, I think society must step in to stop and/or punish such acts as best it can.

But as an individual, I don't see any value in judging the criminal. To label someone, or even the action they took, as evil seems unnecessary. There is pain. There is stupidity. There is horror. But I don't think there is such a thing as evil.

Stopping the War

The biggest problem I see with the concept of evil is judgment. For me, judgment naturally follows evil. When I label something as evil, I can't help but judge it. If that evil wasn't here, things would be better. But when I judge anything, a person, a situation, or something inside of me like a thought or a feeling, I quickly become exhausted by the mental conflict that ensues.

Because all judgment implies conflict. When I judge something, I find myself thinking things like: I don't like that. I wish it were different. Why does it have to be that way? And eventually, I find myself in the unhappy position of fighting my reality. And guess who wins that fight ...

In my opinion, the problem of evil isn't that it potentially disproves the existence of an all-powerful God. The problem of evil is that it exists only in our minds. As Hamlet said, "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so". Allowing the concept of evil to occupy our minds and remain a part of our reality is unhealthy, both for the individual and for the larger society.

Nothing is Wrong

Building on my recent posts about judgment and acceptance, I want to further explore something that helped give me the greatest peace I have ever experienced. I hinted at this in my original post about my spiritual journey with meditation, but I want to expand on it a bit.

I have come to believe that there is nothing wrong with the world. It seems that almost every western religion has the idea that we live in a fallen world. And the purpose of God and/or the religion is to fix the problem(s) that has/have been created, either by man or by some evil influence such as a devil. When I began to step away from the concepts of right/wrong, good/evil, I found myself entering a beautiful state of peace. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

If there is nothing wrong, there is no need for guilt or judgment. When I slip back into the mindset that something is wrong, I instantly judge it. And it doesn't take long for that judgment to snowball. Pretty soon, I find myself irritable, angry, and exhausted. Judging others, judging myself, and judging the situations in which I find myself is an incredibly exhausting job. And it's very unhelpful. In fact, I find it does more harm to my sense of peace and happiness and to my relationships with others than anything else.

Years ago, I would have considered this idea ridiculous. Nothing wrong with the world? Just look around! Everything is wrong! In addition to sounding stupid on the face of it, it also smells a lot like moral relativism or nihilism. I always thought those philosophies were a bit crazy because they seem to say that if there is no absolute right or wrong (or no right or wrong at all), then you can do whatever you want, and it doesn't matter. Anything goes. That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

As to whether the idea of "nothing is wrong" is stupid or not, I'll let the results speak for themselves. It has been instrumental in a deeper spiritual awakening in my life than I had ever before experienced. And for a description of why it might be the right idea, both psychologically and spiritually, see my previous posts on judgment and acceptance. Maybe the only thing that's stupid is our usual western perspective on life and our focus on what's 'wrong' with the world.

As for moral relativism and nihilism, I don't know whether the 'anything goes' attitude is a natural result of those philosophies or not. But for myself, while I don't think there needs to be any moral right or wrong, I think it's clear that every action carries with it natural consequences. So if I choose to take harmful drugs, I can expect a likely consequence of that action to follow. Among other undesirable effects, I may become addicted to the drugs. This results in a loss of freedom, which will negatively affect my happiness. So it's not 'wrong' to use drugs, but it's unhealthy. And my use of them could harm me and those around me.

We can't escape natural consequences, but the moral freedom to choose something unhealthy on occasion is quite liberating. I try to eat healthy food most of the time. But sometimes I want something unhealthy. Although it sounds ridiculous, a pretty common cycle in this case could look something like this: I fight the urge until I'm mentally exhausted; I break down and eat whatever is tempting me; I beat myself up for my weakness, which fills me with guilt making me more likely to need that unhealthy 'fix' to bring me back up. This is the addictive cycle, and it occurs with food, sex, alcohol, or any other pleasure that we associate in any way with guilt.

Growing up, I was taught to fight the unhealthy (or evil) urge or to run away from it. I have learned that this only empowers the thing I'm fighting. The only way to defuse it is to open to it. That doesn't mean I have to act on the urge, but I can. And acting on it may actually help me break the cycle, though it may not be worth it depending on the act. But here's how that might work:

Without a sense of moral right or wrong, I can make an unhealthy choice, but without the guilt. Without the guilt, it's easier to avoid getting caught up in the act, letting me step back and view the thing objectively. I am then able, at a deep level, to become consciously aware of my desires, my actions, and their consequences. This awareness makes it possible to break the addictive cycle by seeing clearly the chain of cause and effect at a deep place in my soul.

Note that I can also do this without acting on the urge, and it's probably better if I don't. But it may be more 'real' and accessible to me if I actually act. And if I'm truly addicted to it, I may act on it anyway, so I may as well use the act to help me break the cycle. But if I have a choice, and if the consequences are bad enough, it may not be wise to act. If you have the urge to hurt someone, for example, I recommend you don't act on that urge.

Through mindful awareness, I have come to see how damaging it is to be a slave of desire. Freedom from desire appears to be a mark of true enlightenment. I don't know exactly what that would look like, but having loosened or broken some of the chains of desire in myself, it seems like a good goal. And if my experience is to be trusted, it seems like letting go of the idea that there is something wrong with the world, either inside myself or outside, may be a key to achieving that state.

Acceptance

Something that has brought me profound peace is the ability to quietly and gently accept the unacceptable. This is something I was not taught in my religion. In a world full of good and evil, with those forces led by God and the devil, with militant teachings (found in scripture and in the teachings of living leaders) about a spiritual war being waged for the souls of men -- how can one accept the opposing side?

I wasn't able to find my deepest peace fully through Christianity. I imagine there are those who can, but I could not. It was not until I gave up on the idea of evil that I was able to fully enter into the opposing side and find it populated with friends. By submitting to the universe tugging at me, I learned to accept the demons in my life, both inward and outward, and understand them better. I learned to see the world as a complex interplay of many types of forces, which, when balanced, create a beautiful, colorful tapestry of life.

It's not in battle that we find peace. It's in acceptance. And balance.

When I began to truly accept everything at a deep level, there was no more room in my mind for the concept of evil. And no room in my heart for anger or hatred. Without these, there was nothing left in my soul to foster conflict. And the natural result was a deep, abiding peace.

But without the concept of evil, what does sin mean? Without sin, why the need for a redeeming sacrifice by God's Son? This shift in my soul tore the foundation out from under Christianity for me. All that was left was love. And that seemed like enough.

So a few years ago, I walked away from the religion I had known and loved. And it was difficult. More difficult than I know how to describe. But it was the right choice for me.

On Judgment

Recently, I posted about my experiences in learning about a simpler approach to life. Part of my reason for moving away from my religious heritage was the recognition that there was a more effective approach to life than the effort-based model I grew up with.

While this is true, I think a more important concept that helped me move on in my spiritual path was the concept of judgment. Or rather, the total abandonment of it.

I tend to forget this concept on a regular basis as I get pulled back into old, deeply entrenched patterns of thought. So I think this post has two purposes. I want to share an important principle that differentiates me from my religious background. And I want to document my thinking here to help remind me when I forget.

I remember several months ago my mantra had become something like, "There are no enemies, only friends I haven't yet come to know." This applies to people when they cut me off in traffic. It applies to situations that cause me pain or inconvenience. And most of all, it applies to my own thoughts, emotions, and impulses. By making friends with what I used to consider 'evil' or wrong, I have come to see that there is no evil. There is imbalance. There is illness. But nothing is truly malicious. And that is especially true of the various parts that make up my 'self.'

I have found that regardless of what's happening around me, I can create a state of heavenly peace inside of me by being at one with myself. By accepting what's happening around and inside of me without judgment.

For the parts inside me, I accept that they are what they are, but that doesn't mean I have to act on every impulse I feel. It just means I give them all attention. I seek to understand them without judging them. And slowly, their masks peel away to reveal ... myself. They are me. They are my friends. And having experienced this many times now, I am becoming convinced that there simply are no enemies. Just friends we haven't yet taken the time to get to know.

For the external world, I found that when I fight reality, insisting that it be something other than what it is, I create conflict inside of me, and potentially with those around me. Most of what occurs outside of me is completely outside of my control, so it's best to offer the serenity prayer and simply let go of judgment. When I do, the enemies I have made all around me tend to transform into friends.

It was in letting go of the need to judge that I was finally able to stop the war I had been waging with myself and the world around me. Or it might have been the other way around - when I stopped the war, judgment vanished. Either way, when I stopped fighting that war, I found peace.

The Effortless Way

My move away from the Mormon church was more experiential than intellectual, so it has been difficult for me to explain my reasons for the change. In this post, I will explore one of the concepts that may have played a role. At some point in my new spiritual practice, I began to see that my old model of living life wasn't as effective as the new model I found.

Mormon theology teaches a nice balance between grace and works. In the words of the Book of Mormon Prophet Nephi, "it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do" (2 Nephi 25:23). Although grace is an important part of that teaching, when compared to Martin Luther's epiphany about grace, motivated by scriptures like Ephesians 2:8-9, "by grace are ye saved through faith ... not of works, lest any man should boast," it's clear that the LDS doctrine emphasizes works more than some other Christian, particularly Protestant, denominations. Because of this, I'll emphasize the insufficiency of the effort-based model. But I'll touch on grace a little bit too.

I recognized many years ago that overcoming pride was not something I could do through thinking about it. If I tried, I would only get stuck in a battle I couldn't win. Because I would be fighting myself. To be humble, I couldn't think my way into it. I couldn't get there through effort. I had to just be humble. I can't give you a formula for being humble. All I know is that it isn't through force of will that humility is realized.

Through meditation, I learned that this was true for many different aspects of life, not just pride. With Mormonism's focus on works, and being raised in American society, much of my religious and secular upbringing focused on effort. I came to believe that I could become anything I wanted if I just worked hard enough. While there is an element of truth in this idea, I have found this effort-based mental model to be expensive and ineffective.

Some years ago, I found great insight and healing through meditation. Part of this was learning to let go. Of everything. And as I began to let go - of preconceptions, judgments, presumed knowledge, etc, I found I could look at myself objectively and pierce the fog of mystery surrounding the core of who I am. I was able to penetrate the illusions I had built up about myself for years and, looking deeply without judging the experience, emotion, thought, memory, or whatever I was experiencing, I began to see the essence of the thing more clearly. And as I began to see, the thing I focused on began to lose its power and dissolve.

No effort. No force of will. No struggle to convince myself. Just a natural, simple, relatively effortless process of cleansing and healing.

Not that it was easy. It took courage to face my demons; and patience to let them show themselves in their own time. But though it wasn't easy, it was almost the opposite of effort. It was kind of like lining myself up with the flow of a river. It took a little work on my part, but it was mostly just me letting go and allowing the river carry me.

This process worked with pride, fear, shame, sorrow, loneliness, and more. All sorts of negative emotions and memories that got in the way of my spiritual progress. But also seemingly positive feelings like desire and attachment. We tend to think of these as happy because there's an element of excitement and potential growth in them. But hidden behind the excitement is a clinging and, sometimes, a fear of loss. I came to see these more clearly also and learned to let go of them.

Through meditation, I was able to achieve a deeper level of healing and more profound spiritual growth than what I found through decades of effort and solicitation of God's grace. So while I appreciate my religious upbringing, I believe the worldview I inherited is somehow lacking. I think I've found something better. And it doesn't rely on tradition, ritual, doctrine, creed, scripture, authority, or even God.

As a Mormon, I had been taught that the key to my salvation was in Jesus Christ. And maybe that's true. I mean no disrespect to the Christian religion, but I now believe that the key to my salvation was never "out there." It wasn't in any other person or external thing. My salvation was inside of me. And when I looked inward, deeply, I found it. No more looking outside (e.g. grace) for someone else to fix what's wrong with me. I had the power inside myself all along.

My conception of God, at least in the sense of an anthropomorphic being, may not have been involved in my healing process, but it is possible that God did play a role. I don't know who or what God is exactly. Perhaps God is that beautiful flow of life I sometimes sense inside of me. Maybe God is a part of me. Or I am a part of Him. Maybe God is the ocean I referred to in a recent blog post. And maybe He was just waiting for me to bring my attention inward sufficiently to unmask Him. To remove the shroud I had woven over the years that kept Him hidden from me.

No amount of effort from me or grace from God seemed able to remove the shroud. It was a part of me. I couldn't tear it off anymore than I could tear off a wound and expect it to be healed. It wasn't until a deep part of me recognized the shroud for what it was that it began to remove itself. The shroud was my ego. And as I began to transform, I came to see that this ego (a collection of memories, thoughts, feelings, etc), which I had always taken to be my self or my personality, was only an illusion. And through my awareness of it, it began to dissolve. I think this is what the Buddha meant when he talked about "no self".

My recent spiritual experiences have given me a deeper peace than I have ever known. And with fewer complications from my ego, my life, while still busy, has been simpler and more fulfilling in recent years than it had ever been before. I think I may now understand what Jesus meant when He said, "my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:30). I think the good life is an effortless one. Not lazy. Just effortless.

Paradoxically, the "effortless way" is not found without work. It takes practice to enter into a state of flow. There's a story that illustrates this beautifully.

Chuang Tzu tells a story about a butcher who became exceptional in his craft. After years of practice, he achieved a mastery of his profession in which all method dissolved and, when carving an ox, he intuitively felt his way through the animal, finding the spaces between the joints and cleaving the ox with very little effort. So efficient was he at finding these empty spaces that he said he had not sharpened his knife in 19 years. There was no need since the blade only ever encountered emptiness.

As a master butcher, he exerted very little effort in his craft, but he had studied and practiced for years before reaching that point. Whether the story is true is not important. The principle it teaches is that of alignment with the Tao, or the 'way.' Alignment with life or the universe. Alignment with what is. A unified state of being. Being in the flow. It takes practice to get there, but when we do, things become so much easier. Life is like the butcher's cleaving. Through alignment with reality, we become aware of the spaces through which we can exert a little influence to create significant change.

I've experienced that alignment at various times. I knew it through Mormonism. But I have found a more effective way to achieve it in meditation. As a result, I have experienced this 'flow' a number of times in the last few years. In this state, it seems like the entire universe conspires to bless me. Everything goes well. Even the things that don't seem desirable turn out to be beneficial.

Though I've only tasted this alignment a few times, I believe it is possible to feel it regularly. And the good life, or the effortless state, can become our daily experience.

It's All One Energy

I just heard a quote from a guy named Alan Watts. I've been listening to him on various youtube posts, and I find him fascinating. Here's one of the more beautiful quotes I've garnered from this video. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find out when and where he said it.

Thoughts, you see, belong to the world of symbols. What we experience with our senses is, of course, the physical world, the real world. You may ask me, ‘well, isn’t there also a spiritual world?’. But you must understand that the spiritual world is the same thing as the physical when the physical is not confused with the symbolic. There is no real difference between the spiritual and the physical. It’s all one energy.

Alan Watts

Finding the Source

For the last few years, I've been practicing meditation. And initially, I had such profound experiences with it that it fundamentally changed my perspective on many things. It was so transformational that it led to my abandonment of the religion in which I grew up. That's a pretty big deal for me because that religion was a huge influence on my life for about 40 years.

But in the last couple of years, that meditation practice has come and gone. And my experiences have been less powerful. And my character has become ... less noble than I would like. In meditation, I found I had the ability to bring a profound sense of peace, joy, and love into my everyday life. And at one point near the beginning of my journey, I felt like I had infinite patience. Nothing was able to rattle me, and I responded to every situation with incredible love and kindness. For anyone who knows me well, that's a big deal because I am often impatient with little, insignificant things. Somehow, meditation transformed me at a very deep level. But lately, that impatience has resurfaced.

A few months ago, I got sick of the man I was becoming, and I began to search for new ideas and new methods to enhance, stabilize, and deepen my spiritual practice. Among other things, I came across a book called "The Surrender Experiment" by Michael (Mickey) Singer. It's a beautiful book, but I won't attempt a full review here. Among other things, it reminded me of some things I had once known, but forgotten. It reminded me of meditation's ability to draw me out of myself. By focusing on the breath, I found myself able to separate my awareness from the chatter of my mind. I have found this separation to be a very useful first step toward deeper states of awareness.

Building on this and other ideas, I began to feel hope that I had rediscovered the path - whatever that means. And I began to go ballistic on my meditation practice. I was obsessed with moving beyond the man I had become and recapturing some of the magic I had found in my initial work with meditation, but had somehow lost. Over the course of several weeks, I spent hours each day in meditation, and I began to catch glimpses of that magic once more.

My practice has since lessened in its intensity, but I am still on that quest to recapture the magic. Recently, I have begun to see that what I had lost was the ability to go deep within myself. I believe one of the things that tripped me up was getting caught in mental models of the process. The mind weaves intricate webs of thoughts, ideas, and feelings, to help us make sense of the world. And as wonderful as that is, it can also prevent us from truly experiencing the world. Our reality becomes the mental model we have created rather than the thing itself.

In my meditation recently, I have been practicing gently moving beyond thoughts, words, emotions, sensations - letting go of each as it comes. And as I empty myself of all of that stuff, I seem to enter into a place beyond thoughts and words. It's a quiet place. It feels like I've gone somewhere else. Almost like sleep. It's not sleep, but it is very relaxing. And I get the sense that I've gone somewhere deep inside of myself, to a place that is deeper than the mind. As I penetrate this place, I sense the love, peace, and joy I previously had, but have somehow lost. It's like I've tapped into a vast ocean of the stuff, and the more time I spend down there, the more of it I can bring back with me when I come out of my meditation.

At the risk of generating more mental models that will prevent me from actually experiencing this ocean of love, I wanted to document what my recent experiences have felt like. I want to do this both for myself, to remind myself when I get lost and forgot how to find the magic, and for others who may be curious about this path. Here's what it feels like to me:

It feels like I am a wave on the ocean. My ego and my thoughts keep me rooted in the reality above the surface of the water. In my normal life, I tend to think of myself as separate and distinct, and I am insulated from the deep ocean beneath me. But when I move beyond my thoughts, emotions, etc., it's like I poke a hole in some insulating barrier under me. I sink into the ocean and realize -- I am not the wave.

I am part of something deeper and more vast than I can imagine in my typical waking moments. And I soak in that sense of awareness of connectivity ... and other things. Things like joy, peace, love, kindness, etc. When I first began to meditate, I was craving peace. And I found it more deeply than I had ever done before. But what I think I'm craving now is love. The love that allows me, at a fundamental level, to seek for what is best for everyone around me, including myself. I had a feeling from my initial practice that love might be the essence of all things - the fundamental building block of all life. My recent excursions into the ocean have reminded me of that feeling, and I think that vast ocean beneath us might just be made of love. In these experiences, I have often been reminded of the Bible's statement that "God is love" (1 John 4:8,16).

As my meditation ends and I come back up into the wave, I bring a little bit of that awareness with me, and a little bit of that essence of life, light, and love. It begins to flow into my ordinary life, as if the hole I poked on my way down stays open for a while. I somehow become a little more patient, a little more kind, a little more loving. It's like I've turned on a light inside, and I can bring that light into the world to share with others.

I think that what I'm describing here touches the foundation of all great religions: 1) a direct experience of something beautiful and divine. Through that experience, there is 2) a transformation or elevation of the soul. And with that transformation comes an opportunity to 3) share with the rest of the world the light that was found. That sharing doesn't need to be proselytizing. Just by being in the world, these people make the world a better place. They can't help but shine.

I'm still working on it, but I feel like this path I'm on is going in a good direction. I feel like I was given a beautiful gift in the profound power of my early experiences with meditation. And now, having been given that vision of what could be, I have been set on a path to capture it a little more slowly, so that it can become a part of my nature. So that I can live in that ocean with a deep understanding of how I got there. And maybe with that understanding, I can help a few others find their way as well.

Who Am I?

I think of myself as a pretty average guy. But in my quieter moments, I know that's not true. I am not average. I am not typical.

But when I try to describe myself, I find it very challenging. I am many things. And none of them. The best description I can come up with to convey my essence is simply:

I am me.

If I try to use other words, I find myself floundering. I am a man. But while that's probably pretty useful information, it fails to capture the essence of me. I am an engineer. Again, useful. But ultimately, not me.

I am often quiet, sometimes gregarious, usually kind, sometimes annoying. I am sometimes weak, at times full of energy. Sometimes ill, but typically healthy. I am tall.

I am a husband. A father. A friend. A coworker. I am full of thoughts and passions, emotions and memories. I have a house and a car. I like to work with my hands. I love to learn. I love books and movies.

I love the way my sheets feel when I first lay down to sleep. I love to wake up early after a good night's sleep, when my mind feels sharp and my creativity is at its best.

I love people. I love life. I love what I have become.

But what exactly is that? What am I? Who am I? I know my name. And I know many things about myself. But none of them really get at the core of my being. All of them are just appendages.

There is a Buddhist concept of "no self," which I take to mean that what we think we are is just an illusion. I believe what the Buddha meant is that our ego, our collection of ideas about who we are, is ultimately not real. And the essence of who we are is something else. But what is that essence?

Is it like a flickering flame, ever changing, but manifesting as a more-or-less consistent entity? Is it like a lump of clay, slowly molded and reshaped over time? Is it something else entirely?

These analogies are useful for pointing my mind toward the truth. But I don't think the essence of who am I is something my mind can grasp. I have no name for it. Maybe there isn't one.

But when I am quiet, I think I sort of touch it. I experience something that feels ... authentic. Real. More real than anything I see in my physical world. Sometimes, I feel like I connect with something bigger than myself ... and sometimes I feel like I connect to my inner self. And sometimes those feel like the same thing. I touch the thing for which I have no name.

Am I delusional? Possibly. I might be crazy. But this connection seems to light a fire inside of me. It seems to make the world deeper, richer, infusing life and color into everything I see and do. It makes everything come alive. It makes life beautiful.

Is this God? Am I connecting with Him? I don't know who or what God is, though I used to think I did. When I am quiet, is it God that I'm connecting with? Or life itself? Or the universe? Is there any difference? Am I a part of God? Like a cell in a larger organism? Or am I just nuts?

I have no answers to these kinds of questions anymore. I used to think these kinds of questions were crucial. And answers must be found. And have been. But life feels more full when I sink into uncertainty about things like this.

I am not average. I am not typical. I don't think any of us are. I'm fairly sure there is no such thing. I am me. And I don't know what that means. And somehow, that acceptance makes me happy. And peaceful.