Category: The Art of Allowing

Just Sitting in Meditation – Relaxation, Breathing, True Nature

—The Art and Practice of Non-Doing in Meditation, Part Three—
>>> Part One: The Practice of Non-Doing in Meditation – Wu Wei, Nature

Many who wish to learn non-doing are crossing from an individuated state to a spiritual state and fear the loss of their individuality. Know that individuality only increases. Look at the difference between Krishna and Buddha-one is sitting and one is dancing. Individuality is not lost through non-doing but emphasized. Our spontaneity naturally reveals us to ourselves. We ARE diverse. Nature IS diverse. Diversity arises out of liberation (as opposed to de-liberation).

You may have noticed that those who have mastered the art of allowing and embrace their true nature radiate a distinct beauty. This is because beauty is the energetic side of truth. Beauty is how truth manifests. A person of truth is compelling. We want to be close. We want to become this truth. We are attracted because we want more of it for ourselves. We want to live with that kind of freedom. We want to live with that level of relaxation-yes, relaxation.

Non-doing is effortless. It is relaxing. Look at how beautiful people are when they are sleeping soundly. It is truth-just lying there breathing. The doing is all taken care of. In the state of non-doing we are as light as a feather. Our energy is boundless for we are not in conflict. It is our lack of inspiration that makes things so difficult and heavy. When we are inspired, we are simply following our excitement. We “find” ourselves doing things. We are not forcing it. We simply witness it.

This is why meditation practice can work so well as a way to get to know non-doing. We practice it while we are doing very little to begin with- just sitting there breathing- on our bums for hours. Experiment with relaxation. Work on slowing down the parade of mental traffic. The more we slow the traffic of the mind, the greater the relaxation.

It is not a matter of having to empty the mind of mental traffic completely before one starts experiencing results. Slowing the internal dialogue occurs by degrees. The traffic slows little by little. As the traffic slows our thoughts become more transparent. We can readily see to what degree we are triggered by them. It becomes clear whether our lives are being run by our habitual thoughts or by our present-tense awareness.

With this recovered freedom from our habitual thoughts we feel joy-the joy of possibility. This is how we always know we are on the right track. If we feel relaxed and joyful then we are doing the right thing. The tree in your backyard is expressing pure joy. The sun as it rises expresses pure joy. It is not concerned about what the neighbors think. It does not amp up its expression in the face of judgment. It does not perform. It answers only to itself and its joy.

Imagine the simple joy you see in young children-a joy that comes from innocence and wonder-the innocence and wonder of one who trusts without having any proof of anything or feeling the need to prove anything. How can they trust so implicitly? Where does this trust come from? The answer is simple. It is ourselves that we are trusting when we trust.

In meditation, deep within the core of our being, we come to realize clearly that there is but one being. We all are this one being-and this one being seeks nothing more but to know itself as one trust and one love. How can it be otherwise? As all beings are one, then all beings carry this same understanding deep within. Some may be in touch with it and some may need a reminder. We teach by modeling. We learn by example. Be joy. Be love. Be trust.

Related Article: Ramana Maharshi’s “I” Thought Method

Here and Now – In the Moment – Meditation, Heart Chakra

—The Art and Practice of Non-Doing in Meditation, Part Two—
>>> Part One: The Practice of Non-Doing in Meditation – Wu Wei, Nature

This is not a shutting down of the self, but a shutting down of the ego. It can get confusing. The key is to stay alert and affirm life-affirm the life that is radiating out from within. If you mistakenly send the message of annihilation to the self you can inadvertently trigger emergency systems in the body. This is something that I managed poorly my first go round and temporarily burned out my adrenal glands. Remember that we are not trying to drop awareness, only the prevailing pathos that thinks obsessively.

There is a tremendous freedom dwelling deep in us all. We are in a habit of expressing that freedom by identifying with our choices. However, it is not freedom at all if we are doing it habitually and unconsciously. Still, our identities (ego) WILL put up a good fight. Just toying with the idea of “non-doing” can have us stand up in defiance and shout- “Come on! You mean just sit around like a pinball in a pinball machine? We need to fight like hell for what we want! I’m not just waiting around for some destiny! I have responsibilities! There are things to do!”

This is where the paradox lies. If we take a closer look we see that these defiant statements above are all future-based and consequently fear-based. The truth is that when it comes time for us to fight we will not be thinking about it-we will be fighting. There will be no stopping us. It needn’t be planned. Life is a kind of martial art that way. We will need to learn how to trust our awareness in the moment-each moment.

Non-doing is in our hearts. The heart is naturally non-doing. It is an involuntary muscle. When it comes to the heart we cannot help ourselves-which is a good thing. Are we in our hearts or in our heads? When we are in our heads we dull life down, dragging the baggage of identity into every life circumstance. The result is a narrowed responsiveness. If we can instead manage without expectation, we remain in readiness-aware and alert.

One of the easiest ways to learn the art of non-doing is to try and not do anything. There is a simple breathing meditation which is to try and not breathe. This does not mean hold your breath. Just try and not be the one that is breathing. Trust that life will breathe for you. Know that this meditation practice may bring up some issues- especially any suppression of energies in the lower chakras. If this is the case, this is good a time as any to start processing whatever that may be.

Try meditation. Meditation works wonders. When doing sitting meditation simply encounter the idea of not doing anything-to not be the one doing- whether it is breathing or anything else. It will soon be obvious to you that “trying to not do” is still doing. This is not something that can be resolved by the mind. The mind will simply flip-flop back and forth and will always be up to something (doing). Relaxing the will helps. This automatically slows the parade of thoughts.

Breathe. We are seeking balance. There are seven major chakras. The heart chakra is in the center and it is the balancer. It oxygenates the blood. The blood is connected to the will and oxygen with consciousness. If we look at a cross (any cross) and liken it to the body, we see a vertical line and a horizontal line. Our will is the horizontal line while the vertical line is our attention to the moment. The two lines meet in the here and now. All ideas are sacrificed on the cross of what matters-the heart.

There is a wonderful book by Esther and Jerry Hicks entitled “The Astonishing Power of Emotions” that goes far in dealing with the practice of non-doing. Interesting that both these books I have made reference to have been channeled (non-doing). This book is about The Law of Attraction and The art of allowing. The Art of Allowing is the same as the art of non-doing. Our feelings are indeed our true means of navigation. We “feel” our way through life.

>>> Part Three: Just Sitting in Meditation – Relaxation, Breathing, True Nature

Art of Allowing, Free Will, The Mind and Meditation

Art of Allowing, Free Will, The Mind, Mistakes?

Make No Mistake
it is the belief
in mistakes
that leads one
to mistakes

I posted this poem on my blog that features short zen poems and koans. I wrote this poem down some three or four days ago and just now got around to posting it. The whole idea has been rolling around in my awareness for a while, and though a number of versions have come out, including this one—

Make No Mistake
believing in mistakes
is the only mistake

I am holding to the original, as it has something particular to it that is not in this slimmer version. It is an important difference, and I would like to go into it here. The poem occurred to me in meditation as much of my poetry does. It may not be clear at first glance, but the subject of the poem is “stilling the mind”.

I do not make it a habit of explaining my poems, as they express something real and experiential in an elegant manner that cannot be readily expressed by prose. I want to make an exception with this poem because the subject is fascinating me at the moment.

Inner Lives and Outer Lives
As excited as we all may get about our inner lives, we still have a biological and material world to manage. I know very few people who make a living doing what they love. Work life for most seems to be full of compromises. This remains a deep frustration for those who wish to practice a meditative life in day-to-day activities.

Working the land would likely be a different story, yet living and working among others who do not share our ideas or aspirations can lead to conflict on many levels. Meditating does help us to both minimize stress and deepen our sense of inner peace—and this often carries over into other areas of lives. So, is this the most that we can expect?

To get back to this poem, I want to take a closer look at the nature of mistakes. From a Zen and Taoist point of view, the experience of no-mind (or empty mind) is a great remedy to the problems that appear to emerge out of the apparent contrast between “inner” and “outer” life. To the degree that we can stay out of our heads, we do feel more peaceful.

Choice-Making and a Fear of Mistakes
So much of our “outer” or “materialistic” lives deal with us making choices. We are headed somewhere and we try and steer our ways along these paths as best we can. We struggle to make the best decisions and naturally regard the alternatives to these wise choices as mistakes. What invariably drives us into our heads is the process of choice-making—the fear of mistakes.

If we accept that the experience of dimension is secondary to our inner lives, then it becomes clear that our true selves never actually go anywhere. It is our preoccupation with direction and path that brings up all of this stress. If our start and finish are the same then does it matter what shape our biological and circumstantial lives take?

Dimension is temporary while who we are is eternal. Our heart goes right on beating without our influence. Our bodies function wholly without any decisions. It is the wisdom of nature that keeps all this in harmony—so where does this harmony stop and something else begin? Does our human behavior (due to “free will”) escape Mother Nature’s wisdom?

Continue with Mistakes and the Art of Allowing, Part Two.

Self, Joy, Meditation, Art of Allowing

— Interview with Lisa Erickson, Part Eight—
Go to Part One of Lisa Erickson’s Interview—
Mommy Mystic- Meditation, Yoga, Integrity and Surrender

Meditation How: Thank you for all of that— your point on war in particular. I appreciate everything you are saying. I don’t believe either you or I are comfortable with claiming to know “how it all works”. When you spoke about us all being peace and light, I believe you hit it on the nail. I also want to address your remarks about the goal being the same for all. I would like to rephrase everything I said about freedom being the goal. What I really want to say is that I believe that freedom is our starting place and birthright. Goals are something very different and deal with manifestations and expressions of that freedom, which is diverse in the extreme.

For me, recognizing this freedom is paramount before any goal need be considered. Otherwise those goals are tainted with programming. Some of us find enough comfort in that freedom that no further purpose need be designed. Meditation is for me the means by which, regardless of the technique, for recovering that freedom. Must we do anything with that freedom, once recovered? Is it not our identifications, ambitions, and goals that set us up for conflict— i.e. this is how it works? Perhaps this idea alone is too much to suggest.

Lisa: You know, your final questions here are exactly where I am at the moment— how to be of true service, service coming from light, as a vehicle of light, instead of from ego. Or is that desire just ego itself? So I am working through this one myself right now, hence some of the waffling that may have come through my answers. I feel I am an ‘action’ being, I have always been an active person, and now my karma has led to me having three kids!—(which I never thought I would have BTW, I was practically a monastic for many years).

So somehow, my life seems to have led me to a point where I am supposed to be engaged. And I do believe nothing, no experience, is wasted. So I am trying to see at the moment, exactly how I can let myself be ‘used’ by the light, I am trying to surrender my purpose, and allow myself to be guided, while remaining every vigilant for signs that I am acting from ego. And I am not quite sure yet where it is all going!

Meditation How: Krishnamurti in his book As One Is asserts that self-knowledge is not cumulative. I love these words, as they remind us that there is no way to know where it is all going, or for that matter, who we are apart from this light and this moment. Your “trying to see at the moment” is a good sign, I believe. It is when we are certain of something that we are not really present. In certainty we are carrying some narrowed view, missing life, and attracting conflict. I don’t need to ask any more questions, but I wanted to offer you the opportunity to respond and say anything more you’d like to say. I have really enjoyed this discussion with you.

Lisa: ‘Self-knowledge is not cumulative’, I love that also, and I feel the truth of it. And yet increasingly I do feel called to act in the world, in a way that I did not feel pulled to even just a couple of years ago. I think it is partly based on becoming a parent, and partly just a reflection of that ‘active’ nature I talked about earlier— that this is the way light comes through me.

I do think of each of us like this unique prism, with the light coming through us and refracting into the world in a wholly unique way. Some teach, some write, some paint, some become involved in social causes, and some simply dwell in being. I have enjoyed our discussion also, and really don’t have anything more to add.

Meditation How: Well put. After all, what is life without expression? I believe that the quality of that expression and its integrity lies in our willingness to drop ego, big plans, ideologies, and surrender to inner light— allowing that light to naturally ignite and inspire our activities. What a great process. Thank you again for participating.

Self adn Joy - The Art of Allowing and MeditationAbout Lisa: Lisa is a meditation teacher, mom, and writer. She primarily teaches chakra meditation, combining practices drawn from Vajrayana Buddhism, kundalini yoga, and shamanic traditions. She has a deep interest in metaphysics and mysticism, and writes about these topics, as well as spiritual books, parenting, and women’s spirituality, on her blog Mommy Mystic. She is also the Buddhism editor for BellaOnline.

Waking Up – Level of Awareness – The Ego – Open Heart

—An Interview with Oldriska Balouskova, Part Seven—
Go to Part One of this Interview:
Listening Meditation – Following Breath – Yoga and Meditation

Oldriska: It wants me to meet it anew all the time– to be creative about presence. The process/unfolding can surely be delayed– and there is a part of us (sometimes called the ego) that does its best to delay it. How does it do that? By pushing against what is, by separating from it, by analyzing it, by judging it, by fearing it… To help another, you can be there as an intense presence.

Meditation How: So, rather than push against it, or analyzing it, or judging it, you embrace it. It is inviting and you accept the invitation. It is just as you experienced with others who felt safe to meet you when you approached them with an utterly open heart during the two months you referred to earlier in our conversation. Your “intense presence” made the space for them to set aside their fears. Would you say that this is accurate?

Do we gain courage by having the will to actually look– actually be willing to witness? To use your terms, the universe invites itself. Having been separate, it must extend the invitation through its realized self to the unrealized self, and the accepting of the invitation dissolved the one invited into the one accepting the invitation. Prior to accepting the invitation, the one invited has identified itself as separate. The unrealized must accept the invitation from itself.

How does it do this? Is it through willingness– a desire to dissolve this barrier? This is very subtle. I have an article I just wrote on meditation and frequency posted on this site. It is about the periodic checking in all of us do. I believe we progress at a rate that is line with this frequency of contact with source which is governed by our willingness to witness self.

For those that have realized self more fully there is no down time of not checking in. However, for those still wanting to progress towards this through meditation or any other means, this checking in is I believe the key. Tell me what you think of this.

Oldriska: Meditation and other means definitely help us to stay “tuned in”. I go through periods when I feel completely guided by life (when the ego is barely there), and then I go through periods when I put more effort into bringing attention to the present moment. You say—“I believe we progress at a rate that is line with this frequency of contact with source which is governed by our willingness to witness self.” Do we even progress, though?

I feel that we are already there and the only thing that changes is our level of awareness of the fact that we are already “there”. Perhaps we can use the word progress if we know that we are not truly the ones doing it, and that the progress is not linear and that it is creative and playful. It is our conditioned self, which is serious, sometimes even harsh, and interested in progress.

The unconditioned self feels like love itself. You say—“those still wanting to progress towards this through meditation or any other means, this checking in is I believe the key.” Yes, yet at the same time, it is the unconditioned self which is waking up and making it possible for us to become more permeable. It is important for me to remember that I am being held and carried and I don’t have to work too hard.

But yes, the checking in is wonderful– and helps us breath more easily. We can try to understand this with our minds to some extent but feeling presence is truly the only way to be. If you need to clarify anything, please keep asking.

Continue with Part Eight:
Mindfulness – Awareness – Alignment – The Living Truth

Trust, Feelings, The Heart and The Art of Allowing

—Mistakes versus The Art of Allowing, Part Two—
Go to Part One

“Free will” is an idea that lives in our heads right next to the idea of “mistakes”. They are both mental constructs. Dimensional life can be divided between organic nature that arises effortlessly by itself and inorganic nature that is imposed due to “free will” and the idea of “choice”. To take my life as an example—nothing that I pushed into being out of decision has ever gone well.

By contrast, everything that ever happened by itself to me has proved to be extremely harmonic. These I consider mistakes as they emerged out a struggle in the mind over various options. In short, my only mistakes were due to a belief in mistakes. This is the difference between the two poems above. We CAN make mistakes by going with our minds instead of our hearts (feelings).

Choosing Out of No-Mind or the Heart
Without our mental struggles it is the heart that takes over. I should point out here that awareness is still very present when the mind is empty. For those unfamiliar with the experience of awareness without mental preoccupation, it must be said: we have greater awareness of possibility when the mind is stilled.

It is fear that has us forcing decisions. The idea of abandoning our dimensional lives to the wisdom of Mother Nature is just too much to consider. It seems a foolish idea. So we struggle over various options and miss much of what the present moment would otherwise offer. This is what leads us to live in perpetual inner argument. All of life becomes political and inorganic.

Is it a wonder that we struggle with so much disease and disintegration? Mind-directed life energies can distort our biological lives. Society and circumstance presses us down and natural energy patterns in the gross and subtle bodies become distorted. Body, Mind and Spirit all suffer. It is true that meditation can turn much of this around, even if only practiced intermittently.

Indifference and Freedom
I want to bring up the idea of indifference. The popular understanding of the word “indifference” has negative connotations—and has come to mean “not caring—not supportive—abandoned”. This is skewed. Indifference in truth leaves one free to express anything. Indifference is synonymous with absolute freedom. Indifference implies we have not made any decision in the matter.

I don’t feel that I have ever experienced this level of freedom. Judgments are so deeply ingrained. We spend our whole lives navigating by dodging this and embracing that according to what we have been programmed to expect. Can we really live without making choices and instead let choices make themselves? Without this natural wisdom in play I feel I am dabbling in an art I will continue to fail miserably at.

I was never meant to choose. The very act of choosing expresses doubts and a lack of trust in nature. Will providence be present? Is life so abundant that my needs will be met through Mother Nature’s wisdom? I want to trust that just as my heart beats all by itself so will fulfillment occur on all other levels. Do I become an unattended pinball in a great pinball machine or does the machine of life (nature) observe a harmony that will prevail more fully in the absence of my disruptive identity-based choices?

Nature: Effortless and Harmonious
It is the struggles that go on in the mind that lead us to overwhelmingly oppressive and negative emotions. Given the opportunity to free oneself with the knowledge that no mistake can be made, things begin to lighten up. According to the law of attraction, the unburdened psyche out of relief is more attractive and positive and will attract accordingly. If we build our circumstantial and social lives in this effortless way do they not continue to function in a harmonious manner?

As a part of nature myself, am I not naturally and organically directed towards my own personal fulfillment— directed wholly by the energies in my person manifesting as impulse and vision, or must I impose ideas and strategies?

How do you feel about this subject?

Related to this post are two interviews. The first with Caroline Manrique on choosing a path with heart and the second with Cabernet Lazarus on waiting for natural guidance.

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