The Way of Integrity: Finding the path to your true self

by Martha Beck

Integrity is the cure for unhappiness. Period.

If you feel persistently disconnected and lonely, you’re almost certainly (innocently) out of integrity.

“If whatever you’re doing isn’t working, don’t do it harder.”

there’s only one reason you did the unpleasant thing: at some level you thought you had to.

Since everyone was making everything up as they went, I could go along with everyone while absolutely believing no one.

by dropping resistance to whatever is happening right now, we are always able to cope.

In the pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Tao [Way], every day something is dropped. Less and less do you need to force things, until finally you arrive at non-action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

As Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.”

When we go to war on something that we see as a war on us, the ultimate winner isn’t either side of the conflict, but war itself.

The moment you begin any creative activity, you leave the realm of violence, which knows only destruction.

A closed mind is like a weapon whose only function is to harm. It grips the thought “I exist in continuous violent reaction to whatever is threatening.”

They’re violating the opposite of the Golden Rule (I call this the Elur Nedlog, which is Golden Rule spelled backward). This version says, “Never allow others to treat you in ways you would never treat someone else.”

“Know what you really know, feel what you really feel, say what you really mean, and do what you really want.”

“Practice doesn’t necessarily make perfect,” he’d say. “Practice makes permanent.”

Everything that truly makes us happy is limitless and multiplicative, not scarce and divisive.

Scientists have found that this “awakening” is associated with specific brain states. In other words, it’s not only real but empirically observable. For people who experience a major satori, the whole world seems to change, because it changes the way they see the world.

According to brain scientists, the feeling of an aha moment is associated with a sudden decrease of electrical activity in two areas of the brain.

Activity in these brain regions correlates with two subjective feelings that underlie our everyday experience: the sense of being a separate thing, distinct from the rest of reality, and the sense that we’re in control of ourselves and our situations.

Notice your own dark wood of error symptoms even when they’re very slight—a touch of irritation here, a wave of fatigue there. Immediately address any level of suffering in yourself. Even a slight drift off course can have serious consequences as your fractal gets bigger.

Acknowledge your own mistakes as soon as you notice them. Abandon all cowardice: when you break through denial, acknowledge your errors and move bravely to a more honest position.

Refuse to betray yourself by believing anything that clearly causes suffering.

Once you’ve found clarity within, refuse to lie—and remember that there are times when silence is a lie. Say what you really mean when it feels right, even though others might not approve.

Make sure you spend your time doing what you really want or moving toward what you really want in a series of one-degree turns.

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