D.M. Kenyon's Blog, page 5
March 25, 2012
Karma Builder: Today's Karmic Workout – Declare The Purpose Of Your Life
Today's Exercise: Declare The Purpose Of Your Life
[Preparation Note: you will need a nice piece of paper and a pen that writes well for this exercise. Do not attempt to declare the purpose of your life on a scrap piece of paper; it deserves more reverence than that. At first, you might be tempted to laugh at yourself or not take this exercise seriously. What does this say about how you see the potential of your life? Just because you do not take yourself seriously, does not mean that the world sees the same thing. The battles you have with your self-esteem are purely part of your internal dialogue and largely based in delusion. Others might take this exercise way too seriously. They may think that simply writing a purpose on paper gives them some special significance. Not so.
Declaring the purpose of your life means that you actually have to turn off your smartphone and tune into what the heck it is that you are actually doing on this planet. For the vast majority of people, this question is either unanswerable or the answer is rather lame. For some people, the purpose of their lives is crystal clear and this clarity becomes a platform for some truly good karma.
If you look out into the world for a purpose of your life, you will not find it. The universe does not care what you do with your life. It is not that it hates you or anything, but it is a universe, after all, and does not think, so it does not care. But you think. Every person on the planet creates a purpose for their lives even if that purpose is beneath them. Many of us take so little responsibility for our lives that we really just stumble along rather than use our being as the magic clay with which to shape existence. This explains why half of the people in the Industrial world are on medication or self-medicating with intoxicants. They have no idea what to do with themselves. Today is the day to change all that.
The declared purpose of your life is only valid for as long as you are willing to live into it. It should not be declared lightly, but, by the same token, it does not have to be permanent. To declare purpose, however, and do nothing about it throws away the power of your word and renders it weak and impotent. Start by thinking through what you really love in life. Think about the things you care about most. Look for the real passion of your existence (not romantic passion, but the passion of fulfillment). If serving or relating to specific individuals pop-ups in your thinking, you want to step past them. Living your life for a specific personality is not liberated being, it is most likely co-dependency. The purpose of your life should not serve a face, it should serve face-less beings that may happen to include your loved ones. The point is to identify the being that you are trying to bring into the world, not a specific thing.]
Find a quiet place to sit and reflect upon your life. Establish your breathing with long inhales and equally long exhales and get to a place of relaxation.
Contemplate what it is that you want to see come into the world and how it would benefit yourself and others. Ask yourself if this is a vapor trail worthy of your life.
Consider that for millions of years, countless beings, billions of them, in fact, have struggled to make sure that you came into the world. They fought for you. They died for you. Your existence was important to them and it is important to the world.
Consider that as a human being you have the ability to do almost anything. You can feed the poor. You can clean up the planet. You can come to the aid of the sad and down-trodden. You are capable of helping to build heaven on earth. (So what do you actually spend your day doing?)
Identify the being, the happening, that you want to see come into the world most. It does not matter how great or small it is. It does not matter that you think it is practical or not. Determine what you would create if you could create anything. Write that down on your special piece of paper. By writing it down you give it physical reality. Sign your name to it.
When you re-enter your daily world, start looking for opportunities to fulfill your purpose. You may want to feed the poor. You can start by giving a few dollars to a shelter or donating to a cause on line. Take it one step at a time, but do not forget why you have said you are here.
Training Note:
Human beings have the power to destroy planets. They have the power to feed millions. They have the power to stop diseases … and human power is growing by the day. And yet, we direct this power at the most foolish things. We allow corrupt individuals to control this collective power to do things that we are against. We pick fights with other countries over natural resources. We enslave each other. We abuse each other. We try to dominate those around us emotionally so that we can be comfortable with little regard to what happens to them. All of this power in the hands of confused and greedy beings creates enormous chaos. Ending the chaos begins with you ending your personal contribution to it. You can live for your smartphone or to text your friends and in the end that is all you will bring into the world. Your potential will have been wasted on a trivial life that was largely devoted to its own anesthetization. Why bother? Of course, it is your prerogative to be virtually useless to the world, if you choose, but do not be surprised if the world ignores you. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it is just that it is pretty much a waste of resources an space. Ultimately, there is no difference between a couch potato and Mother Theresa expect in how human beings experience the mundane world. Unless, you reach ultimate enlightenment some time soon, however, you might want to get busy taking responsibility for the human experience.
Karmic Benefits:
Get A Life: most people live by accident. It does not occur to them that life occurs around a design — even if you don't have one. A life that occurs around no design either is at the whim and whimsy of others or is chaotic. Making a declaration of purpose does not mean that your life will turn out a certain way. If you do not back your declaration with action you will have wasted your breath. But having a direction allows you to focus your energy on what is most important to you rather than have your efforts be randomly tossed to the wind.
Put Some Thought To What You Are Actually Doing: life can be so accidental for some people that they have a difficult time declaring a purpose because they have not summonsed enough mental energy to give a damn about anything. The Information Age has nearly drowned the consciousness of some poor minds leaving them lost, confused and powerless. Thought is the only tool you need to focus. Focus allows you to gather energy and direct it in a specific direction. If you do not think it through, however, you are ship on the ocean without a rudder or a sail.
A Focused Mind Produces Real Impact: even if you focus your attention on amusing yourself, you are likely to get your wish. But then what? The reason so many people feel dissatisfied by life is that their plans are small and do not allow them to step into an admirable being in their own estimation. Any people are prone t living like hungry ghosts more than they are like clear-headed human beings. We create identities for ourselves that are full of pomp and significance, but it is often a cheap parody of the real thing. When your actions in life are aligned with a purpose that you hold in esteem, it is pretty easy to get up in the morning. You tend to stop thinking about yourself and focus on your purpose. Trading a self for a purpose is a really good deal and the road to personal fulfillment.
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March 24, 2012
A Message To The Cake Eaters
Today, the African Union announced that it was sending 5,000 troops to hunt for Joseph Kony that has used the jungles of Africa to cover a lifetime of atrocity. Better late than never. For years, my children, through their respective Catholic schools, supported Invisible Children, the organization that launched a viral campaign to make Joseph Kony so famous that he would have nowhere to hide. Say what you will about Jason Russell and his recent apparent nervous breakdown, the campaign is working and it is not about him anyway. It is about Joseph Kony.
For well over a decade, the genocide raged on in Southern Sudan and the Industrial world did nothing about it. Why? Because it was in the interest of international business global political gridlock to leave the genocide alone. The people of the Darfur region were not important enough to warrant protecting , at least in the eyes of the global business and political communities. But for millions and millions of global citizens, they were important. Their suffering was heard and most of us wanted to do something about it. Millions and millions of us were willing to have our tax dollars stop the murder, rape and mayhem. Millions and millions of us were ignored by our respective politicians who were too busy pandering to global conglomerates rather than tending to the will of the people.
The power elite did not care who Joseph Kony is despite the fact that this monster of a man was the number one fugitive on the International Criminal Court's most wanted list. He controlled no oil. He did not interrupt international shipping. He was the problem of poor Ugandans of no significance to global business interests. But these poor Ugandans suddenly found 85,000,000 friends on YouTube because we the people watched Invisible Children's Kony 2012 video. Even mass media's attempt to discredit Invisible Children could not stop social media. We listened past the goat herding attempts of the corporate media establishment and we made our intentions known. We shined a light on a murderer and now he is being hunted.
The lesson to be learned here, is that the people of the world can no longer trust that their governments respond to the will of the people. It is clear that all governments respond to the will of the global business elite who seek only to serve themselves under a bogus theory of the divine right of fictitious job creation. We have returned to economic feudalism. We have lost control of our institutions that are supposed to serve human beings, not corporate entities. We have granted "super person" legal status to corporations while stripping the individual human being of everything but the barest fragments of citizenship. It is time to surround these oligarchs and force them to sign and live into a new Magna Carta. It is time to bypass corporate media and talk among ourselves. We, each of us, must take individual responsibility for the world we say shall exist. We must spread the news amongst ourselves because the mass media version of the news is simply too polluted with propaganda.
If we are to have the planet that we, the people, want, then we will have to take control of it ourselves, by ourselves. If we are to have peace and freedom, then we are going to have to cause it ourselves and stand up for our brothers and sisters, no matter where they are in the world they are, and bring oppressive governments to their knees – together. We, the people, must tame the unruly beast of greedy politics to restore humanity to human society. Joseph Kony has helped us all see that this can be done.
The next great revolution for the liberation of the human population will not be fought with drones or cruise missiles. All of the high-tech weaponry in the world will not save a government from the army of us, we, the people. We will take them down with cell phones. We must force our governments to deny personhood to entities and reserve democracy for human beings alone. We can cut off the flow of product purchasing and tax payments until they agree to the demands of the sovereignty of humanity. They cannot fund the construction of drones and cruise missiles without our money. They cannot get to their office buildings to plot the sucking of the world's wealth into the hands of a few if they can't get past the millions of us who flash mob the streets and make it impossible for them to conduct their business.
This is no longer a matter of Occupy Wall Street or the battle for freedom in Syria. It is no longer an Arab Spring, but rather, it is Springtime For Humanity – all of humanity. This is about the Great We — and We are really, really pissed off. We want our society back in the hands of people. We resent corporation fanning the fires of hot-button religious and political issues to manipulate the masses. We will solve our difference as people, not entities. We want our money back from the rich. We demand freedom for everybody, even if it means that these free people will refuse to do business with certain governments or corporations. We want the liberation of our women, respect for all races, religions, ethnicities, gender preferences and we are going to smother our oppressors by banding together until our demands are met – or worse – we are going to stop buying products and paying taxes. It is hard to buy a bomber or yacht with your surgically enhanced good looks alone.
So the message to the cake eaters it this: pay close attention to what is happening in Egypt, Syria, Oakland California and elsewhere. It is going to start happening in Moscow, Beijing and Omaha, Nebraska. We are talking to each other and we are talking about you.
I may only be a single "me", but I have 700,000,000 friends on Facebook.
Karma Builder: Today's Karmic Workout – Touch Someone
Today's Exercise: Touch Someone
[Preparatory Note: this project requires the participation of another and it also requires that you ask their permission to participate. You are going to ask someone to allow you to touch them on the hand, arm or face in a perfectly appropriate way. Hand holding is nearly ideal for this exercise. There is a catch: the person that you are going to touch cannot be a member of your family or someone with whom you have an intimate relationships. In fact, the more remote this person is from your life, the better. Because asking people to touch them can occur as completely creepy, you are going to have make your request with an explanation. Simply tell the person that you are doing an exercise that they can do with you and that it involves feeling another person's humanity. It is like a game and can be very informative. When you have found someone who will do this exercise with you, make sure that you conduct yourself honorably. If the person becomes anxious during the exercise and changes their mind about their participation, you must discontinue it immediately.
This exercise is particularly powerful when done with people for whom you have no natural attraction. Using this exercise to hold hands with an office "hottie" is not an exercise in being, but rather an exercise that services your inner sexual predator and should be avoided.]
Sit or stand next your experience partner and get your breathing under control. Long inhales with equally long exhales establishes a smooth rhythm of being.
Take a minute two to clear your mind. Notice that, depending on who is doing the exercise with you, a flurry of anxieties arise in your mind. There is nothing to do with these, but notice them.
Take your experience partner's hand or interlock arms and feel them. Notice that you mind wants to dart away, especially if you do not know the person well. If you are doing the exercise with someone considerably removed from you, you might even panic a bit and be quite frightened by the sudden experience of intimacy. Notice that you your mind does not want them to "know" you. Notice that you may not want them to see into your chaotic flush of emotions or that you may be afraid of "knowing" them. This is the natural state of human relatedness in the Information Age and all others.
Start to notice how they feel to the touch. Notice their breathing. Notice their body temperature.
Look into the other person's eyes. Notice how your mind immediately goes to "faking" your eye posture to conceal your vulnerability or the emotions that are coming up for you. This is the cloak of deceit that you often use with other people. They are probably doing it too. Let go. Let them in. They will let you in. Trust each other. Do not judge – just be together for 2 minutes. It may feel uncomfortable, but stick with it.
Training Note:
Human beings like to think of themselves as "civilized", but they live as scared as squirrels. We live our entire social lives with a protective mask of looks and body language that keeps our minds at ease. The more scared you are the thicker the mask. Tough guys are the most scared. Intimacy is an affront to our "fight or flight" instinct and yet, intimacy is the gateway into the the world f being. The world of being is not for sissies. It takes inner clarity and resolve to be with the being of others because you become one with them and lose the protection of your hand-crafted defensive identity. There is an entire universe, however, available on the other side of the defensive wall and this new world functions differently than the world of things does.
Karmic Benefits:
Confront Your Inner Sissy: the people who seem to be the most fearless in our society are usually the one's with the strongest defensive shell. This is not true strength because it is fueled by fear and defensiveness. True strength engages with the world openly and neither protects itself nor acts out aggressively. True strength has the calm of a snake charmer and engages life with skill rather than protective barriers. It is the ontological equivalent of riding your bike with out a helmet.
Reach Out And Actually Touch Human Being: most of what we know about other beings is the pure fabrication of our imaginations. We collect little flashes of data, the look in an eye, a body posture and then we map an entire biography onto a person. We really do not engage the beings of others very often, if at all. Even people we love, people who are theoretically "close" to us, are more fantasy than reality. We rarely engage other beings from a point of neutrality. And yet, the greatest beings who have every lived almost universally have this in common: the engage. They put their hands in and on the wounds of others. They allow their hearts to be broken by what they find in the human condition. They soar with joy at the magnificence of being. If you stay hidden behind your defensive personality, you cannot know this world.
Make Note Of Your Fear: like all other animals, human beings live in a nearly perpetual state of fear. We are on guard 24/7. In the ancient times our fear was of invading hordes or snakes sliding into our huts. In modern times, the threats we fear are more complex. We have anxiety over being yelled at by a spouse or disappointing our friends. This may seem trifling, but the the fear we feel is just the same as when our ancestors heard the snap of a twig in the forest centuries ago. Fear knows no justification. Fear is fear.
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Karma Builder: Today's Karmic Workout – Touch Someone
Today's Exercise: Touch Someone
[Preparatory Note: this project requires the participation of another and it also requires that you ask their permission to participate. You are going to ask someone to allow you to touch them on the hand, arm or face in a perfectly appropriate way. Hand holding is nearly ideal for this exercise. There is a catch: the person that you are going to touch cannot be a member of your family or someone with whom you have an intimate relationships. In fact, the more remote this person is from your life, the better. Because asking people to touch them can occur as completely creepy, you are going to have make your request with an explanation. Simply tell the person that you are doing an exercise that they can do with you and that it involves feeling another person's humanity. It is like a game and can be very informative. When you have found someone who will do this exercise with you, make sure that you conduct yourself honorably. If the person becomes anxious during the exercise and changes their mind about their participation, you must discontinue it immediately.
This exercise is particularly powerful when done with people for whom you have no natural attraction. Using this exercise to hold hands with an office "hottie" is not an exercise in being, but rather an exercise that services your inner sexual predator and should be avoided.]
Sit or stand next your experience partner and get your breathing under control. Long inhales with equally long exhales establishes a smooth rhythm of being.
Take a minute two to clear your mind. Notice that, depending on who is doing the exercise with you, a flurry of anxieties arise in your mind. There is nothing to do with these, but notice them.
Take your experience partner's hand or interlock arms and feel them. Notice that you mind wants to dart away, especially if you do not know the person well. If you are doing the exercise with someone considerably removed from you, you might even panic a bit and be quite frightened by the sudden experience of intimacy. Notice that you your mind does not want them to "know" you. Notice that you may not want them to see into your chaotic flush of emotions or that you may be afraid of "knowing" them. This is the natural state of human relatedness in the Information Age and all others.
Start to notice how they feel to the touch. Notice their breathing. Notice their body temperature.
Look into the other person's eyes. Notice how your mind immediately goes to "faking" your eye posture to conceal your vulnerability or the emotions that are coming up for you. This is the cloak of deceit that you often use with other people. They are probably doing it too. Let go. Let them in. They will let you in. Trust each other. Do not judge – just be together for 2 minutes. It may feel uncomfortable, but stick with it.
Training Note:
Human beings like to think of themselves as "civilized", but they live as scared as squirrels. We live our entire social lives with a protective mask of looks and body language that keeps our minds at ease. The more scared you are the thicker the mask. Tough guys are the most scared. Intimacy is an affront to our "fight or flight" instinct and yet, intimacy is the gateway into the the world f being. The world of being is not for sissies. It takes inner clarity and resolve to be with the being of others because you become one with them and lose the protection of your hand-crafted defensive identity. There is an entire universe, however, available on the other side of the defensive wall and this new world functions differently than the world of things does.
Karmic Benefits:
Confront Your Inner Sissy: the people who seem to be the most fearless in our society are usually the one's with the strongest defensive shell. This is not true strength because it is fueled by fear and defensiveness. True strength engages with the world openly and neither protects itself nor acts out aggressively. True strength has the calm of a snake charmer and engages life with skill rather than protective barriers. It is the ontological equivalent of riding your bike with out a helmet.
Reach Out And Actually Touch Human Being: most of what we know about other beings is the pure fabrication of our imaginations. We collect little flashes of data, the look in an eye, a body posture and then we map an entire biography onto a person. We really do not engage the beings of others very often, if at all. Even people we love, people who are theoretically "close" to us, are more fantasy than reality. We rarely engage other beings from a point of neutrality. And yet, the greatest beings who have every lived almost universally have this in common: the engage. They put their hands in and on the wounds of others. They allow their hearts to be broken by what they find in the human condition. They soar with joy at the magnificence of being. If you stay hidden behind your defensive personality, you cannot know this world.
Make Note Of Your Fear: like all other animals, human beings live in a nearly perpetual state of fear. We are on guard 24/7. In the ancient times our fear was of invading hordes or snakes sliding into our huts. In modern times, the threats we fear are more complex. We have anxiety over being yelled at by a spouse or disappointing our friends. This may seem trifling, but the the fear we feel is just the same as when our ancestors heard the snap of a twig in the forest centuries ago. Fear knows no justification. Fear is fear.
Share Your Experience:
Leave a comment when you have completed the exercise.
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March 23, 2012
Karma Builder: Today's Karmic Workout – Listen For The Voice Of Virtue
Today's Exercise: Listen For The Voice Of Virtue – Compassion
[Preparatory Note: This exercise requires that you remember to do it. Remembering to do something that is not a habit can be difficult. To help us remember, we are going to use a mnemonic device. The best way to remember something is to put something odd in a place that you will surely notice throughout your day. The oddness of seeing the thing will trigger the memory that will remind you to take action. In this case, we are going to use a piece of string or ribbon tied to a finger on our dominant hand. This will not draw too much attention from others, but will frequently remind us (unless you wear string on your fingers regularly) throughout the day to do the exercise.
At any given time of any given day, human beings are covering the full spectrum of thought and activity from rape and murder to desperately trying to save the life of another. This means that all of this thinking and action is always present in the stream of awareness available to any single human being, especially those with an internet connection. In the Information Age, we are usually so overwhelmed by the buzz and fizz of human thought and action that we filter almost all of it out - the good, the bad and the ugly. While this insulates us from having our hearts broken all day long by an endless stream of unhappy news, it also cuts us off from being aware of the daily expressions of human virtue and the dignity of human life. Time to come out of your protective cocoon.
To listen for a particular virtue requires that you have that virtue on your own mind. When we are angry about something and anger is on our mind, nearly anything, even the yapping of a little puppy, can trigger rage because we are listening a place to put our anger. This is a function of what psychologists call "priming". We hear what we want to hear and what we want to hear is usually what is already on our mind. If we are angry at the government and read the news, the stories about politics and political shenanigans will practically leap from the news paper or internet.
To do this exercise, we have to prime our minds to be listening for virtue, in this case, the virtue of compassion. We want the compassionate acts of others to virtually leap up from the means by which we learn of them and fill our awareness. Yes, you can cause this to happen on purpose. You have more power to shape your consciousness than you think.]
Prepare your mnemonic device. In this case, you are going to tie a ribbon or string to a finger of your dominant hand. It will be out of place enough to wake you up every time you see it.
To "consecrate" the device, in other words, create a symbolic identity between the device and your intention to hear compassion, you will need to perform a small ritual. Rituals are not by themselves possessed of any particular power. Depending on how a person relates to ritual, however, especially if one creates a relationship with ritual that is devoid of doubt, the ritual penetrates the crust of our thinking to create "priming".
Take 3 minutes to meditate. Start by getting your breathing established in a regular pattern of long inhales and equally long exhales.
Take another three minutes to visualize the enormous amount of human compassion that is being expressed in the world every day. There are people being helped by the kind-hearted; there are elders teaching the young and parents showing affection to their children. Somewhere someone is getting an organ transplant from a person who died and left them a piece of their body. Charge your mind with knowing that this is happening right now, all over the world.
Loosely tie a knot in your mnemonic device, but do not pull it tight yet. Breath in all of the compassion that is floating in the world as it is being given off by the kind-hearted. This might take several breaths. Exhale this compassion into the knot and pull the knot tight as you exhale to bind the compassion in the knot.
Every time you see the knot you will now think of the compassion that it contains that is being drawn from all around you. Every time you are reminded to do so by seeing your mnemonic device, stop, think about the compassion filling the knot and then immediately look for an example of it around you. If you are around other people, look for small acts of kindness and friendliness. Look for people valiantly facing difficulties, but choosing to be gracious. Look for someone taking care of another. Don't stop looking until you see it. Scan the news and look for heroic acts. Compassion is everywhere. Remember to stop and do the exercise ever time you notice your mnemonic device, even if just for a few seconds. The more you do the exercise the more powerful your mnemonic device becomes.
Training Note:
Modern people do not hold ancient or mystical rituals in very high regard. This does not mean that they do not immerse themselves in rituals, they do; they are just not usually the types of rituals that expose the nobility of humanity. We have our morning routine servicing our vanity as we fuss over our appearance. We have our morning coffee to wake us up because we cannot do it with our minds alone. We have the slog to work where we listen to music or talk radio and fill our heads with distractions and abstractions to the extent that we do not notice the world as we drive by. For most of us, our daily rituals are part of a nearly comatose existence. What if, however, we were to use ritual the way ancient people did – to provoke awareness and evolution? Aren't you tired of meditating on what is wrong in the world? Prime yourself to listen for compassion and you will live in a world of big-hearted heroes.
Karmic Benefits:
You Are What You Are Listening To: whether it be your own internal dialogue or a song about having sex, you are what is on your mind. Your whole consciousness starts to cluster around the conversation in your head – even if you did not put it there. You are not required to live in a random stream of consciousness. You can choose what is on your mind. Choosing to listen for virtues like compassion bring those virtues into your being, prime your mind and inspire your action consciously and subconsciously. This literally changes your behavior and changes the world around you in ultimate effect.
Active Listening Changes Lives And Changes Planets: the most inspirational people on earth live inside of a conscious motif of thought. They are focused on and become a vehicle for their perceptions. They change the world because they are able to inspire others to think what they think and be inspired by what inspires them. They plant thoughts into the mind streams of others. We can be informed by a song about co-dependent love gone awry or we can be informed by looking for examples of heroism and compassion in our world. What you listen to fills your head full of everything from complete crap to the magnificence of human potential. You would not sleep in a pile of garbage, why live in a pile of ontological waste?
Ritual Is The Axe That Cracks Through Your Cynical Crust Into The Part Of Your Brain That Is Creating Your Waking Day: our minds can be difficult to tame. Anyone who has ever struggled with something like trying to quit cigarette smoking knows that self-control is far from automatic. Some thoughts, however, are more powerful than others. When we put our intentionality to work by creating reverence or some other heightened state of awareness, we can often make a bigger impact on our thinking. Rituals are methods that do just that – crack through the crust of distraction, ignorance or cynicism to get to the core of our think that can be shaped before it becomes polluted with random mental trash.
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March 22, 2012
Karma Builder: Today's Karmic Workout – Dedicate A Shrine To Your Heroes
Today's Exercise: Dedicate A Shrine To Your Heroes
[Preparation Note: This exercise does not take that long if you have a design. A shrine can be any corner of your world, but it should have a place of honor. That means that you do not put it directly on a floor, you do not put it in a bathroom and you keep it clean. Shrines are special places of mental focus. The images placed in them are meant to remind you of your strongest and most important ideas. The discipline that you apply to maintaining a shrine reinforces these ideas - keeping the mental energy flowing without being blocked by cynicism, neglect or other mind killers. Shrines are essentially like light bulbs, they illuminate so long as the are connected to the battery of your effort and you remember to turn the switch to "on".
Your shrine should contain images or representations of the people you admire the most and from whom you have received the greatest wisdom of your life. It could be teachers you have had, religious personalities, mentors or historical figures. The point is to identify you heroes and the create a method that lets their contributions really go to work on your mind.
Structurally, your shrine can take any shape, but it should be nice. Small can be nice. You can make a "pocket shrine" out of an Altoids tin. A decorative box, a special picture frame or a small cabinet all can be converted into shrines. The shrine should have representations of your heroes and you should make some deliberate offering to the shrine to create the connection between you and the object of your admiration. A small flower, a candle, a bowl of water, a piece of food all can serve as offerings. The point is to make the interaction between you and the shrine very intentional. Intentional behavior wakes you up and lets the benefit of your hero make its past the crud in your brain from listening to music, watching TV or simply spacing out.]
Prepare your shrine and place the images of your honored one(s) in it.
Prepare a small offering.
Take 5 minutes to contemplate the benefit you received from the honored beings in your shrine. Make an offering to the shrine and say some words of thanks. Take time to appreciate the being(s) represented in your shrine.
You can leave your shrine up indefinitely so long as you continue to honor it. A neglected shrine is worse than no shrine and actually creates negative karma and degrades your relationship to your honored one(s) in the shrine.
If you come to the end of the use of your shrine, disassemble it respectfully. If your shrine is made of natural materials that can be burned, it is appropriate to burn your shrine while thinking of the benefit being released into the universe.
Training Note:
Modern people have lost the power of reverence. Reverence is the power to hold certain thoughts in our mind so strongly that we do not allow those thoughts to be defiled. These become the core of our thinking, if cultivated properly and can produce enormous benefit in our being. By losing our reverence, we have also stopped searching for examples of higher living. Instead of climbing the mountain of wisdom by revering people who have made exceptional contributions to us, we simply walk around in circles never getting anywhere other than where we are already. Reverence is the mental act of distinguishing exceptional being and honoring it. In honoring it, we absorb it and this not only benefits us, but everyone around us.
Karmic Benefits:
Identifying Exceptional Being: most people do not notice the greatest beings in humanity. We are often too busy watching reality TV and venerating some comically ignorant person who makes us feel better because, at least, we are not that bad. And yet, we live in a world of million heroes that often go unnoticed because we have not turned our mind to the task of noticing the heroic. Magnificent beings only show up when you open your mind to see them. Start looking.
Intentionally Creating A Relationship With Human Excellence: the vast majority of our time is spent with mediocrity and the utterly mundane. Why? Because that is all we are open to. Reaching the heights of human ability begins with knowing what is possible. Look around. Excellence is everywhere. The more your notice, the more it can be part of who you are.
Following Examples That Help Us Evolve: we sometimes get put off by people who can do more and be more than we can. We think that they are special and that their lives cannot be accessed by ordinary folks. This is nonsense and more an excuse to be lazy than it is a statement of fact. We may not be able to save thousands of people from starvation, but we can save one or two. We may not find a the cure for cancer, but we can read to those who are dying and bring comfort to them. We don't have to be the most excellent beings on the planet, but we can carry the spark. Say what you will, but light is light.
[About the graphic: a small shrine honoring the author's grandmother, Margaret Kenyon. In 1928, Margaret was the valedictorian of her graduating class and went on to college whereafter she became a 6th-grade teacher. A woman of very few complaints, she took care for her parents most of her adult life. At one point, she held a full-time job, nursed her husband who was dying of cancer and cared for her elderly and senile mother while living in a house with her son, daughter-in-law and four grandchildren. At age 86 she underwent by-pass surgery and thereafter recovered enough of her eyesight to read sheet music. This allowed her to teach herself how to play piano. She died at age 90. Though a diabetic, Margaret had a life-long attachment to sweets. The offering of candies on this shrine are sugar-free. She was the very epitome of courage, optimism and grace and I miss her very much. DMK]
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March 21, 2012
Karma Builder: Today's Karmic Workout – Hold The Center Of The Universe In Your Hand
Today's Exercise: Hold Center Of The Universe In Your Hand
Estimated time: 10 minutes.
Tools: a tea cup or glass that you can hold in your hand.
Location: any quiet place. No phones or devices present.
Sit comfortably in a quiet place. Get your breathing under control. Take long inhales and equally long exhales. Get your body fully aerated.
Pick up your object in your hand and look at it. Notice that it is separate from the rest of the universe. Or is it?
While looking at the object consider these questions:
Why does you mind consider the cup and its contents to be two separate things when it does not do the same for other similar objects. A watermelon holds water but we see it as a single thing. Consider that the cup and its contents are one thing and only your mind distinguishes them, quite arbitrarily as two.
If the contents can be part of the cup, then why not all that is around the cup? Is not your hand part of the cup? It is physically attached to it. Many things like your body, for instance, are composites of many substances and yet we consider them to be one thing. How a thing is attached does not make it separate, does it? It is only our mind that separates. Separation in not inherent in the nature of the universe.
Is not the air, too, part of the cup? It is touching it. Why does it matter that ceramic is not air. Molecules are molecules. All matter is really just a single matrix of physical existence. Do the atoms in the air know that they are not part of the cup? Or does our mind simply distinguish one set of atoms as "this" and another set as "that" as a way of dividing up a atomic sand pile?
If all the atoms are linked together, then the cup is the center of the world and stands in relationship to other planets and celestial bodies. Are they not, too, part of the cup? An atom is mostly empty space. Surely, empty space is part of the atom and, hence, empty space is part of the matrix, a single matrix, of atoms. Only our mind carves out of this matrix the Earth, the Sun and the Moon. Hence, the cup is the center of the universe. Does it matter where it is positioned in the matrix? Core is core.
Sit in contemplation of the cup as the center of the universe for five minutes. Study its connections to all things. Notice that your eyes, at first, see distinction, but as you think about it, those distinctions start to disappear. Notice you mind chewing on what you see trying to divide it into separate things. The entire universe is fluid, a single mass of atoms and space. And what is an atom? Energy and space. And what is energy? There is not much in your hand, is there?
Training Note:
Our consciousness plays tricks on us. It makes us think that we are objects separate from the rest of the universe, but this perception is arbitrary. Distinguishing things from one an other is purely a function of cognition, but has no fundamental necessity as far as physics is concerned. We might say that a group of atoms that are arranged in a particular pattern in close proximity to one another is a "thing", but the fact of the matter is, that it is just a grouping of energy and space and the pattern is strictly in our mind. How we slice and dice our environment from a point of perception is purely a function of choice and those choices are not always in our best interest.
"Me" versus "you" is divisive. "We", on the other hand, is a start at more accurate description of our natural state. This slicing and dicing of reality is the the foundation of delusion and the bedrock of all human suffering. Understanding that form is purely fictional is difficult to do because we have such a long habit of mentally fabricating form. Step outside of this habit and your mind is truly free.
Karmic Benefits:
Understanding Fundamental Sameness: when you get mad at somebody, the joke is on you. It is like the left hand thinking that the right hand is bad. The truth is that we are all part of a single phenomenon and spend most of our time trying to encapsulate and insulate a notion of self thinking it will make us feel better. It usually makes us feel worse. It justifies our disdain for "other" when there really is no "other" except in our minds.
Freeing Your Mind From "Self" and "Other": ego is the root of suffering in human consciousness. Every single thing that has ever caused you to feel bad can be traced back to the "me". When you think that you have been treated unjustly, the "me" is insulted. When you have been cruel to others, the "me" separates from the "other" to justify cruelty. Your ego has turned you into a victim and a jerk simultaneously. Step outside of self and you step outside of suffering.
Getting To Know The True Power Of A Mind Not Limited By Appearances: the world of appearances, distinctions and separation is a trap. You may think that you are not part of the universe that kills, smells bad or beats its children, but when you separate yourself from these phenomenon, you isolate your ego from the whole. You lose your ability to impact the whole and become at odds with it. Consciousness is far more flexible than that. It can move about the matrix at will because it is one with all of it. For now, it is enough to understand that there is no "you". In the first place, where would a "you" live? What gland secrets your "you-ness"? Maybe you just carved out a chunk of the matrix and stuck a name on it.
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March 20, 2012
Karma Builder: Today's Karmic Workout – Take A Vow Of Silence
Today's Exercise: Take A Vow Of Silence
[Preparation: you are going to need to figure out an hour of the day that works for this exercise. If you have a job that requires you to communicate verbally, it would not be proper for your to do this exercise at work. If it can be done, however, you want to do this exercise when you are around a lot of people. By the way, you cannot write or text during this exercise. You can gesture. What makes it powerful is the numerous opportunities to practice silence in a world full of people who rarely shut up.]
Pick an hour out of your day when you will be around people, but it will not be harmful for you to remain absolutely silent. Sitting in church or in a library does not count.
Prepare a note that says, "I have taken a vow of silence for one hour. I cannot speak – but you can. " You will need this to explain to people what is going on. Make this note ahead of time so that you do not break your vow by writing later.
Calm your mind and think about an hour of no talking. Visualize yourself remaining silent.
Promise yourself that your vow begins at your chosen time and when that moment comes, your last words should "on my life, these are the last words that I shall speak for [an hour]" .
Do not speak even if you are provoked by mischievous friends. This exercise is about discipline and how easily your discipline can be usurped.
Training Note:
You might have a million and one reasons why you cannot do this exercise — all the more reason you should do it. This is not as easy as it looks. You must undertake this exercise inside of respect for your promises and obligations in the world. If you are a radio announcer, do not do this exercise at work. Everyone, however has an hour when they are around people where they can take a vow of silence. Put your friends and family on notice that you are doing this, but do not go into seclusion. The point of the exercise is to be with people without talking. It is about discipline and the psychological effects of remaining silent. You will learn nothing if you do this exercise when you are asleep.
Karmic Benefits:
Your Words Are Not As Important As You Think They Are: when we stop talking we realize rather quickly that most of what comes out of our mouths is pretty unimportant. In fact, it will probably take the world around you some time to figure out that you have even taken a vow of silence. Aside from a few moments of curiosity, most of the people in your world will not have a huge problem with your silence. You might even start to make it a regular periodic practice.
Shut Up And Listen: in the talking world not much listening happens. We pause our speaking often only to take a breath or to figure out what we are going to say next. When we stop the chatter, everything else in the world has the opportunity to show up in the space that our silence creates.
Silence Speaks Louder Than Shouting: when we do not talk, it is startling to others. They actually pay more attention to us than when we banter back and forth in common conversation. What becomes possible in communication when you do not use word? The more you engage others in silence, the more aware of them you become, but also, the more aware of you they become.
Bonus Workout: Do the exercise for an entire weekend.
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March 19, 2012
Karma Builder: Today's Karmic Workout – Read Someone Else's Holy Book
Today's Exercise: Read Someone Else's Holy Book
Pick a religion that is not yours. It is best to pick one that is either completely foreign to you or one for which you do not have a particularly good feeling.
Identify the main religious text of this religion and locate a copy on the internet. They are all on the internet.
Calm your mind and clear any preconceived notions out of your head about what you are going to read.
Prepare to read with prejudice: prepare to read the book with the idea that there is truth in its pages and you must find it. Know that wisdom is in the book and dig for it.
Set aside at least a half an hour and read someone else's holy book.
Try to understand why this is so important to others.
Training Note:
It is not important whether you agree with other religions or any religions, for that matter. What is important is that you make an effort to understand why these religions are important to so many other people. What is it in them that they revere so much that they would honor by building churches, temples or mosques? It is not important to read the holy book of another to believe what practitioners of the faith believe. It is enough that you understand that the book represents the truth held by thousands of other people. It is important to understand the wisdom and logic that is being presented and understand that it is a perfectly valid way to live a life. What is it that the religion is ultimately trying to achieve? There is a beautiful answer to this question in every case.
Karmic Benefits:
You Might Actually Learn Something: great holy books were not written by idiots. They were written by people with immense inspiration. Entire civilizations have been organized around these books and the best minds of many generations venerated them. You might want to put down your cellphone and find out what is the big idea in them. Understanding is the foundation of tolerance and the seed of peace.
Be Witness To The Path Of Others Trying To Obtain Human Fulfillment: your fellow human beings are trying to achieve some goal with religion. What is it? You will be surprised that you are likely to share many of their aspirations. Can you find the magnificence in what these people of religion want for the world? We are often too focused on what these books say about those who fail to reach these goals instead of looking at the goals themselves. Understanding what people want deep in their hearts locates their humanity.
You Cannot Find Appreciation In Your Own Ignorance: you have no right to an opinion about another religion until you have, at minimum, read its principle holy book. Even then, you cannot really know what the religion has to offer as an outsider, but this is of no consequence in this exercise. The idea here is to have a point of real reference instead of a superstitious opinion regarding the religions of others. Knowledge destroys ignorance and with it, hate.
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March 18, 2012
Karma Builder: Today's Karmic Workout – Humanity Mining
Today's Exercise: Humanity Mining
[Preparation: You are going to interview someone briefly. This will only take a few minutes, but don't be surprised if a very real, related conversation erupts. You should interview someone that you do not know all that well. If you want bonus points, ask your questions of someone that you do not particularly like. Make sure that you ask your questions without discussion on your end. If they want to explain, that is fine, but keep yourself out of this. Whatever answer you get is the answer you get. Make sure that you thank the person being interviewed for being kind enough to share with you when you are finished.]
Identify someone to interview. Tell them that you are doing an exercise and would like to ask them five (5) simple questions that are philosophical in nature. Promise that you will not interrupt their answers, not judge them or even comment on their answers.
Ask them five basic questions:
What do you love the most in this life?
What do you hate the most in this life?
What do you fear the most in this life?
What makes you happiest in this life?
What makes you saddest in this life?
Watch the person you are interviewing closely. Look deep into their eyes. Notice the changes on their faces as they consider your questions. Make sure to keep a pleasant expression on your face to ensure that they do not feel intimidated.
Notice that they are telling you the deepest meaning of their lives in many ways and respect their answers even if they are not what you would say.
Do not judge an answer, but simply notice that this is what is true for them. Write down what they say. Thank them for answering your questions.
Privately, review your notes and take at least 3 minutes to fully consider what you have been told and how it feels to be the person who told you these things. Consider that there answers are perfectly reasonable and very much a part of the spectrum of human possibility. This is what humanity looks like.
Now answer the questions yourself writing the answers on paper. Read your answers aloud to yourself and consider who you are.
Training Note:
We pigeonhole others and rarely consider who they are in their own words from their experience. This is a particularly arrogant thing to do. In the process we miss what is really going on with the people around us and rarely stop to become intimate with them. We then wonder why their is civil unrest, chaos and mayhem in the human domain. The antidote to ignorance is awareness. Awareness does not arise in a mind that is not mining for it. In fact, we generally spend most of effort trying to not be aware because it makes us emotionally uncomfortable. When you do this exercise, prepare yourself to fall in love with people.
Karmic Benefits:
Learn To Shut Up And Listen: most of us spend most of our time talking and not nearly enough time listening. This leads us to believe that we are well-put-together and the mess is with everyone else. The mess can be found in our arrogance and self-conceit. Notice that most of us have an impulse not to want to know what is really going on with others. It interrupts our "me" time. And yet, when we take the time to go digging for humanity, we almost always find it.
A Life In Its Own Words: just as literary criticism has almost nothing to do with the art of writing, judging people has almost nothing to do with the lives of others. All we wind up with is our own self-serving opinions mapping out a terrain that is all too familiar to us already. Rather than defining the being of others, why not allow being to speak for itself. You will be surprised what shows up when you get out of the way. The benefit of this is that you have just created a space for others to live in on their own terms. You have granted them the right to declare their own being without being imprisoned in your opinion.
What If The World Was Full Of Big-Hearted People? Human beings tend to respect people they know and understand. This understanding does not occur by osmosis. When we come to know each other, we invest in each other. This goes beyond mere empathy. This is the beginning of the Great "We". A community of people who have come to understand the humanity of one another lives in peace, works for the common good of all and cannot be divided by selfishness.
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