Nov 09

7 Things to Do Now that Trump Will Be President

Yes, of course, we are stunned, dumbstruck, incredulous, heartbroken. But what on earth can we do about it?  Here are seven “first responder” suggestions, to begin to heal:

  1. We can go ahead, bitch, moan, complain, tear out our htantrumair, even throw up, lay down on the linoleum, cry, pound our fists, kick our feet. That’s only natural. But then we need to shut it off, 10 minutes, max. We need to conserve what energy we have left —mental, emotional, physical. We’re surrounded by barbarians.
  2. Let’s just pause, for a moment. Not even think. Pause until we can be grateful again for being able to take another breath, surrounded as we are by this mysterious circus tent under which human evolution proceeds. What an ugly, “bearded lady, plastic man” show we have seen these last six months. So let’s just pause, for a moment, take a deep breath. The sun, 93 million miles away, which came up again today, was not that moved by the final count.
  3. We can pray: “Forgive them Father (Mother, Gaia, Allah, Brahma, Nityananda, Da) for they know not what they do. We would this cup pass from our lips, but nevertheless, not our will but thine be done.”
  4. We can keep putting our garbage out on trash day. We can take comfort knowing that not all of our communal systems are so broken.
  5. We can let go of, or at least loosen our grip on that faulty “democrat/republican” identity which was forced upon us. Yes, we are U.S. political citizens, but before we were U.S. citizens we were, when first born, simply citizens of the biological world, planetary citizens, world citizens. We are, fundamentally, part of a human family that knows no borders (no red or blue states.) It’s time for us to once again act from this truer, more fundamental identity. We’re so much more than “for or against?” Time to let go of political identities.
  6. We can keep the faith. We are, after all, still mostly safe. Let’s remember that, in spite of this seeming craziness, people in general, on a daily, walk-around basis, are basically okay, compassionate to each other, often even rational, or at least practical. This election was a perfect example of the “madness of crowds.” (In crowds, people can be led to say and do things they would not otherwise say and do.) In line at the post office, let’s wiggle our fingers at the two year old staring up at us in wonder. Down deep, we all want the same, “wiggle of fingers” from our fellow strangers. Let’s stop, as soon as we can, holding a grudge. Let’s wiggle our fingers, when opportunity avails.
  7. As the dust is settling, let’s try to understand how it happened. (“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”) This may take a while. Why were (let’s admit) a majority of the ordinary people here in this land so alienated from the Democratic party that this mean, angry, untruthful, basically unhappy and unethical man could win their support? How do our current (mostly economic) institutions leave so many people out, make people feel so alienated that this man’s irrational, dangerous, self-serving rhetoric makes sense to them?

From our own experience we know that most people want the best in life, first for themselves and their families, and then for the community at large. Obviously, the candidate the democrats put forth did not embody that dream for the majority of people.

For many of us, we do feel there’s a new consciousness happening here on the earth, a consciousness  which allows us to see and feel the singularity of the human family. Clearly, Donald does not express this new consciousness. Let’s admit, neither did Hilary. Perhaps—just perhaps—the political arena is not the arena in which this new consciousness will be expressed.

So, as best we can, let’s shake the dust from our feet, as we are encouraged to do, and move on. Donald will soon see that he does not have the power to stop this new world, this new consciousness , this new whole-planet life many of us are now here experiencing. We will continue to work, day by day, to bring a little more compassion, a little more understanding and truth—even a little more gaiety — to the room where we are. No politician has the power to stop this simple human work. Our understanding of our continuing potential, in these dark days, keeps the light burning.

Oct 11

Should Monks and Nuns Vote for Hillary or Donald?

“ Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy – Ernest Benn

Yes, we monks and nuns will probably vote for one or the other, (more likely the one,) but our hearts are not into it. Few of us have been out ringing doorbells, or sending much cash, or arguing  with family and friends. Like I said, we’ll vote, but our hearts are not into it. We’re monks and nuns, after all.

For close to 30 years now I have been a lay monk (and Senior Librarian)  at

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Heart Mountain Monastery, Nunnery and Art Colony, a Buddhist-Methodist, online off-line, community of old and new friends, dharma buddies, fellow travelers.  As monks and nuns, (and/or simply practicing artists) we endeavor to gently align our daily lives, inwardly and outwardly,  to what is real, true, beautiful.

One has to be very “prayed up,” as they say in the business, to see that what is going on between Hilary and Donald, and in the political arena all together, is at root “real, true, and beautiful.”  That may, in its deepest reality, be the case, but, alas, most of us, within and without the monastery, are not so prayed up that we can see that deepest reality, see the beauty there unfolding.  (As the Zen folks say, we all still have a “beginner’s mind,” when it comes to being “prayed up.”)

Both Donald and Hilary claim to be Christian, (Hilary a Methodist,  Donald a “baby Chirstian,” of the right wing, polticial expediency type).  As Mahatma Gandhi observed, “Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians – you are not like him.”

One of our basic games at Heart Mountain Monastery is to pretend that the whole planet is holy ground—thus, the whole planet is our monastery. We sometimes take the game a step further and pretend that every being on the planet is either a monk or a nun, knowingly or not, on a life’s pilgrimage to higher consciousness, e.g., the consistent perception of truth and beauty.

So we see Donald and Hilary as pilgrims, as a singular monk and a nun, making their way through life as best they can, with crowds,  minions and media filming, recording their every step.

Thus, as you might guess, as monks and nuns here on this holy ground, most of us at Heart Mountain Monastery have not been inspired to give much energy, much attention, to the vicious, narrow, seemingly unreal conversations, debates (sad, suicidal warfare) now ongoing between Monk Donald and Nun Hillary.   Some of us simply regard these two as a rogue monk and a rogue nun gone sadly, seriously  astray (from the reality of the good, the true and the beautiful), and influencing others to do the same.  Regarding the political arena, for many of us, “It’s not my monkey, not my circus,” as one wag nun nicely summed it.

Of course, we have a few monks and nuns at HMM who insist that no, the choice between Donald and Hilary is in fact quite real – – life and in death real, Christians and lions real,  ISIS and Boko Haram real, drowning refugees real– – and thus we should, we must, throw our energies into the ever-shifting maelstrom: Donald or Hillary? Reality demands an answer.

We monks and nuns – – those of us intent on discovering  the singular (mono- nun-o) reality on this planet, and aligning ourselves with it, with what is inclusive, sustainable, harmonious, what we can count on, even directly experience and share with others—we monks and nuns, though mostly un-attentive to Donald and Hilary, are nevertheless quite attentive, deeply dedicated  to bringing  an end to suffering.  We are not so much torn between Donald and Hillary—which one will most quickly end the suffering–  as we are baffled and saddened and, in the end, made mostly mute by the cultural, economic, educational and political systems that brought these two to the top. Such general systems failures are among the reasons we made the decision to put our life’s energies in other directions, e.g., withdraw, to an extent, where we can, from such systems, and become monks and nuns.

For us, when you ask,  Donald or Hillary? The question is akin to the old,  “have  you stopped beating your wife yet?” The question itself does not reflect our reality.

Or, more precisely, the question Donald or Hillary? is like being asked, is the sum of two plus two five,  or is it seven? Neither one we say.

That’s not a valid answer we are told. You must decide, choose: which is closer to your truth? Five or seven? Okay, five is closer to four, in some ways, But, relative to 2+2– the principle of mathematics– five is just as untrue as seven. We can’t say 2+2 = 5 is closer to the truth than 2+2 = 7.  2+2=5e is absolutely not true, just as 2+2 = 7 is absolutely not true.

For monks and nuns, neither Hillary nor Donald represent our true communal leadership. Neither of them have presented to us a workable path to peace, to economic solvency, to international harmony– to the end of suffering.  As monks and nuns we probably will vote on election day but our faith for peace on earth is not placed in the political arena.

Something is indeed happening on this planet that does inspire a devotion of our daily energies. As monks and nuns we are inspired to go beyond our cultural conditioning, our nationalist conditioning, our dualistic Democrat/Republican conditioning. We daily work for the singular light of life which is articulating itself, demonstrating itself, now revealing itself ever more clearly. We want to work for Gaia, for Kosmos, Shiva Shakti Buddha or simply more peace on earth.  You can ask us, Donald or Hillary? We do not see the answer to this question as an answer that will end the suffering.

Yes, we’ll vote. But our faith for the future is no longer placed in nationalist politics. “War is too serious a matter to leave to the generals,” to either Donald or Hilary. Leadership now must come, is coming, from we, the grass roots.

Oct 10

How To Pray for Donald Trump

praying-hands           donald-trump3“I’d pray for the m.f’er to be thrown off his yacht, with cinder blocks chained to each leg,”  one poker playing monk buddy responded when I brought up the question of how we should pray for the Duck.

“And one around his neck for good measure,” another chimed in.

A third poker playing monk added, “And I’d pray that at the Pearly Gates Saint Peter turns out to be Saint Pedro, or even better Saint Patricia Gomez.”

There appeared to be common consensus.

My question arose from my understanding/observation that bringing peace to earth is the responsibility of every individual, (not just we monks and nuns) and that we bring peace to earth by first bringing peace to our own inner atmosphere. Since the name and image and words and actions of Donald Trump have been fire-hosed into our collective consciousness for the past year, and will continue to be for at least another month (may it fade after November), it seemed to me that we need a way of “neutralizing” the inner warfare/trauma/revulsion that his image and words seem to bring up for so many of us. (My poker playing buddies not excluded.)

Traditionally, the way to neutralize, humanize, even heal such troubled inner atmosphere is through prayer and/or meditation. So how do we pray for Donald Trump?

Everybody has his or her own way of praying, (thank God, so to speak) but here’s what comes to me: We pray for Donnie in the same way we pray for the small boy who claims he’s superman and can lift a car above his head. We pray simply by knowing the truth.

Our knowing of the truth is useful not only for us but also for the blustery boy who makes such outrageous claims. We know that the boy has in fact spent no time developing his muscles, and even if he had, has absolutely no understanding of the physical challenge he claims he can meet. As mature adults we know the truth, so we don’t take him seriously, no matter how much he wants us to, (we don’t get into an argument with him about it) and we don’t take personal offense at his silly claims, even if his playmates insist, “Yes, he really can lift a car above is head!”

We nod our heads, understanding their hope, their wonder, but we know better. We absolutely know better. We put our attention elsewhere.

Since we know the truth about Donnie himself (he really can’t hold a car above his head), we can move our attention to the truth about Life Itself; we refresh our knowledge of and experience with  Life’s ancient and persistent Harmony, Balance, Beauty and Singular Integrity. Although Donnie would suggest there’s an “us and a them,” (he would yell, argue, bluster, insist there an “us and a them” there), we know life better than that, simply by looking.  We know Life is a singular unfolding, in which we are all equally enmeshed, moved and formed. We know—we can see with our own eyes and hearts—that we are each and all, including Donnie himself, equal parts of this unfolding Great Mystery, this beautiful suchness, this circus of wonder. We remember the larger picture that time and again proves there’s something easy and natural and without conflict happening in our political arena because  there’s something easy and natural and without conflict happening throughout the universe (the colliding galaxies being no exception.)

We know the truth, that always and everywhere what sometimes appears as ugly and vicious and cruel can not long survive in a universe fundamentally beautiful, ever supportive and sensitively present. Even hurricanes eventually peter out and die.

So our work—  our prayer—is to inwardly put Donnie back into the larger picture. We know that the evolutionary force towards “peace on earth” sometimes shows itself in seemingly hateful, blustery and incongruous forms. (And there IS such an evolutionary force towards peace on earth; we can feel it in our bones. The ugly caterpillar crawls into its cocoon, eventually emerging as a butterfly.) Our prayer is to inwardly and outwardly do what we can, in the place we stand, to help resolve such unpeaceable forms, evolve such unhappy forms back into the natural harmony and beauty towards which they were all along evolving. We pray by knowing that Donnie, like all of us, must bow to natural law. Life itself will curb his mouth. His playmates will discover the hidden rules. We don’t argue with his silly claims.

We pray by keeping our own peace, our own vision, our own joi de vivre,  and then doing what we can to extend and expand that peace, whether it’s knocking on doors or turning off the debate or simply patting the blustery little boy on the head and giving him milk and cookies, insisting it’s time for his nap. That’s what adults like us do.

Cinder blocks are not, alas, part of the true solution.

Jul 24

How to be a Monk or a Nun & Bring Peace on Earth in Five Easy Seconds

I was recently asked to return to my old counseling job to fill in for an old colleague who had been forced to take a leave of absence.  At first, it was to be quite temporary, just a week or two, but it turned into two months.  That gig ended, I’m happy to report, just last Friday.

Prior to returning to this work, for the three previous years I had been living mostly a “sanyas” lifestyle  (e.g., retired from worldly ambitions and seeking to glimpse and abide in the Greater Realities, either as a householder monk  at   Heart Mountain Monastery, or as a pilgrim traveling the world, or a poker player with other old geezers.)   Told I would be counseling  my colleague’s clients for only a single session, I felt challenged to come up with some kind of basic, yet multi-layered little “practice” that I could quickly share  with these folks on a one-time basis that might serve them the rest of their  lives, might help them move along their paths with greater freedom, ease and peace of mind. It was a delicious challenge.

Although, imperfect (aren’t all “practices” by their very nature imperfect?) I did come up with such a practice— one that in its briefest form takes just five seconds to engage.  Although it takes just five seconds, if we can stretch it out to ten or fifteen seconds, that’s even better. But five seconds works. Come to find out (no surprise here) it’s the same practice that leads one to be a monk, or a nun, or peace on earth, at least momentarily, at least for five seconds.  The practice is simple—condensed  in just eight words—though it takes a little longer to explain. I call it the Zoom Love practice.  Here’s why it works:

Disciple: What is enlightenment?

Zen Master Huang Po: “Your ordinary mind.”

Let’s admit that most of us most of the time are unconsciously running away from our ordinary selves, and are habitually at war with our ordinary minds. We run away from our ordinary selves by running after more money, more fame, more sex, more security, a cleaner house, better friends, faster car, and/or peace and justice for the poor and overworked. There’s lots to run after, here on this planet.

We run after these things because we have been led to believe that more of these things will make us happier than we are in this moment.  And attaining these things does make us a little bit happier when we get them, for a moment.  But the happiness from attaining these various things fades very quickly, so we’re off and running again.

Not only do most of us run after all these outer things but most of us are also at war with our inner ordinary minds simply because the inner mind itself is always running, running, first here, then there, chasing after one thing, running away from another, angry with this piece of life, wanting more of that piece.

In brief, we are always carrying on, carrying on, first here, then there, then somewhere else. To be a monk, or a nun, or peace on earth, if only for a brief moment, we need a practice that reminds us of what magic, beauty and completeness are already here, right now, in our ordinary day lives. Thus, the Zoom Love practice. To wit:

The Zoom Love practice:

1st step:  Stop. Yes, for  just a second, just stop whatever you are thinking, feeling or doing. (It’s okay to stop for just one second, isn’t it?)

2nd step: Relax.  We can stop what we are thinking, feeling or doing but still remain uptight, which is how most of us live our lives. So after we stop, the second step is to simply relax, let go, of the tension, unfurl the wrinkle between the brows, drop the shoulders, take a deep breath, just de-contract for a moment. (It’s okay to relax for just a second, isn’t it?)

3rd step: Just love  (just be, just enjoy). Whatever you are doing in the moment, whatever you are feeling in this moment, just love it! If you are pissed off at something or someone, just love being pissed off!  If you are driving to work, or grocery shopping, or working on your novel, just love it!  Just love what you are doing and who you are being in this moment, just love what you are thinking or feeling,  whether its exalted or crabby. Just love your ordinary self, your ordinary feelings and thoughts, the ordinary challenges that are appearing in this ordinary moment. Just love your ordinary relationships, ordinary circumstances. Just love your ordinary self and whatever it is thinking, feeling and doing here in this moment. Enjoy what’s happening, if only a little, if only for a second. Right here, right now. (You’re just loving for a measly little second. It won’t kill you!)

4th step:  Zoom Out.   After you take a second to love your ordinary life, this is like giving yourself the “view from the blimp.”  Let your point of perception zoom away, outside the building you are in, away from any face to face challenge you are in. Allow yourself a wider view of your momentary mental, emotional and physical condition. This “zoom out” step moves you from “narrow focus” to “open focus.” When you “zoom out” you are playing with and in awareness itself, reconnecting with the freedom of awareness itself. We want just a simple moment of life, of love, of rest, peace.

Step 5: Carry on. The last step of this quick little exercise is simply to resume whatever it was that you were doing before you did the exercise. Just continue on.  Go wherever you need to go. Be who you normally are, after gifting yourself this quick little refresher. We don’t have to worry about this 5th step because we are always  “carrying on” anyway. The Zoom Love exercise helps us take a breather from “carrying on.” But the 5th step helps us to integrate our love and peace and freedom with whatever it is we are doing in life.

This “Zoom- Love” exercise takes just five seconds or so (one second for each step.) If you can stretch it out to 10 or 15 or 20 seconds, so much the better. But five seconds will do.  This exercise is not (at first, or necessarily) a replacement for any other meditation or activity.  Rather, as you practice it, you will discover that it eventually makes your whole day brighter, easier, more effortless.  Here’s why:

Your ordinary self—awareness itself –is naturally relaxed, at ease, at peace, enjoying the moment. Awareness  does not need any particular activity to make it peaceable, or happy. Awareness, which is your ordinary self,  is magical, alive, unlimited Doesn’t it make sense to reconnect? Or more accurately, re-member?

The more your practice being your ordinary self, awareness itself, the easier it will be to be at peace in all you do. Which is what a monk or nun endeavors to do.  Again:

  1. Stop
  2. Relax
  3. Just love
  4. Zoom Out
  5. Carry on.

You are encouraged to do this little exercise five times a day, or 10 or 20 or forty times a day. But even once a day is better than nothing.  This “zoom-love” exercise is absolutely NOT hazardous to your mental, emotional or physical health! On the contrary, it is absolutely the healthiest thing you can do for yourself, and the planet,  day after day, year after year. Don’t take my word. Try it.  Experience for yourself how life flows more easily!  Grace and humor, wisdom and energy all grow beautifully.

Aug 02

Pilgrimage with the Abbot

The Abbot and his wife and I and my wife will soon (August 9th) be off on a five week pilgrimage to monasteries and holy places in England and Scotland. If you want to subscribe to my journal for his venture (who knows what it will be?) sign up at bear@beargebhardt.com

Travel is what old folks are supposed to do, at least in their “early old folks” stage,” if not later. (“Old folks” being those who qualify for medicare. So the Abbot’s wife does not qualify, the other three of us do.)

I like the  “pilgrimage” notion, since in general I’d prefer to stay home, sit by my zen garden, not exert the mental, emotional and physical energy it takes to get out of town. Somehow, though, this pilgrimage appeared in my/our Present Moment and we as I have learned been trained to do,  I said “Yes” to it.  My yes had to override my first response, the habitual “nah, too expensive and not worth the bother,” response that I have to many of life’s invitations.

Would love to have friends, family and fellow pilgrims travel with me, us, on this pil;grimage. Such companions make the travel that much easier, that much more fun.  Again, if you want to travel along, please

I’ll try to not overwhelm you with musing and simply bring you the news and views from merry old England, and Scotland, and maybe even Iceland, as the journey unfolds. I promise to keep the updates short.

Life is a pilgrimage… bjg

Jun 15

Artist-Monk Identity = First Identity

monk artist     I’ve recognized I’m probably more artist-monk than anything else.
Jut for fun I recently “numbered” my various identities in accordance with which ones fit best. “Artist Monk” comes out #1. (“Bear Jack Gebhardt” comes out at #2. Like everyone else, I have 10 or 20 other regular “lesser” identities that rise up and then fall away during my daily walk-around pilgrimage. )
When I say “artist monk” I mean householder artist-monk, of course. I’m married, with children, after all, and have little businesses here and there. Suzy, my nun-wife of a hundred years, and I still have soft, often and delicate intimate relations, mentally, emotionally and physically. And I regularly enjoy an evening cocktail, and semi-regularly play poker with my buds and daily watch the up and down breathing of my stock portfolio.      But still my #1 identity, the one that goes furthest back, and deepest in, and fits most comfortably, is this artist-monk’s identity, which seems more than anything passionately curious about the nature and purpose of God and Love and Peace and Beauty, awakening, zen dancing, creating.
I’m much, much more interested in the artist-monk life than I am in the political life, for instance. Or in body-building, or making money or the music scene, though I do practice these other arts as well. (Except, maybe, for body-building.)
Of course, we’re talking metaphor here, mostly, though not entirely. The householder monk metaphor, the nun metaphor, is a useful metaphor for me to synthesize and focus what’s most important for me here on earth– loving God with all our heart and soul and mind and loving our neighbors as ourselves, as one famous monk once put it.
Rupert Spira, one of my favorite non-dual heroes, (“a modern-day hero,” according to the existentialist philosopher Colin Wilson, “is one who is no longer self-divided”) has a beautiful youtube video about how to bring the non-dual (e.g., monk, nun) realization into daily life. The realization, or awakening, is instantaneous, he says, (although it may take 20 years before it happens, before we simply realize, “Oh, I’m not the body, I’m awareness, aware of itself”). However, bringing this realization into our daily affairs, into all our relationships and modes of making a living, such a process is a life-long pilgrimage, a life-long art.
For me, the “householder monk-artist” metaphor works quite well as a “framework” for bringing non-dual realization into daily affairs. I would assume the “nun” metaphor might do likewise, though culturally, at least to this monk, the “light” of a nun seems much more pure, removed, untarnished then that of a monk, many of whom, best friends and present company included, have gone rogue.
At any rate, today I again recognize “householder monk-artist” is a fitting, gentle, quite comfortable identity. You’re welcome to try it out yourself, see how it fits. From where I sit, it appears that the world could use more householder monk and nun artists.
I’d be interested in hearing your response to such a metaphor.
Namaste.
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Jun 10

Cowboy Satsang, Unity Church and the $4.00 Movie:

Towards Building an Infrastructure for Non-Duel Meet-ups

Went to a satsang last night at our local Unity Church.  (“Satsang at Unity”: A promising combo, yes?) Alas, I guess I have too much cowboy in me, or cranky old geezer or new millennium artist to go along with the program. I was disappointed.
To begin with, if it had been a Christian Science lecture or the Rotary Club, or even a seventh grade Civics class, the satsang would have started promptly—no exactly—at seven p.m., as the flyer promised. From a Christian Science perspective, such precision would demonstrate awareness of and obedience to Divine Principle. The Rotary people would be prompt– would have started at 7– simply because promptness is a sign of good business: be open when the sign says you’re open. Starting promptly is also a way of honoring those people who actually showed up on time. (Seventh grade Civics class starts on time just because otherwise uncontrollable pandemonium breaks out.)
If this had been an ordinary people’s meeting and not advertised as satsang, then at seven, or thereabouts, someone—maybe even the featured speaker—would welcome those who were there and tell them the program would begin after a short meditation or period of silence. But last night’s Unity satsang followed the standard, somewhat silly, at least to me, modern day ritual of having a few of the followers, devotees, upfront arranging and rearranging the flowers, the water glass, the microphone, lighting the candles and making sure The Chair (the dais, the throne,) where the guru is to preside sits just right. And then after The Arranging, they return to their seats and we all sit in silent meditation, preferably with eyes closed, Awaiting.
So we waited, no one saying word one, candles burning, for at least ten more minutes. (I confess, I looked at my watch.) Our satsang lady did finally come out from behind the curtain, where she, too, had apparently been Awaiting, and, neither smiling nor unsmiling, took her seat in The Chair.
Oh good, I thought. The program should begin soon. Naturally, the guru lady was dressed in purple. Sitting down, she crossed her legs, again moved things around in her chair to suit her own sense of proper arrangements, and then, with a deep breath, she, too, without a word, closed her eyes.
So we meditated some more.

Satsang, for those of you unfamiliar, is nothing at all like the rodeo where when the buzzer goes off, the gate flies open and the bucking begins. No siree. Satsang is much, much slower. When the guru-ess closed her eyes, everyone else (almost everyone else) likewise closed theirs, as is the expected custom.      This, apparently—though nobody said as much—was “transmission time.” She would transmit good vibes to the whole world, but more particularly to us, sitting there in the room, close to her, who had paid our dues.
I had a radical teacher once—Da Free John later known as Adi Da—who suggested that when you are in the presence of a realized being (which Da Freebie assured us he was), for Christ’s sake keep your eyes open! If you saw Jesus, would you close your eyes? Probably not!

The principle: Seeing a realized being with your physical eyes is a rare and evolutionarily beneficial sight, known in the east as darshan. Such visioning is an opportunity, so the story goes, of bringing together the inner and the outer, the yin and the yang, the subjective and objective, heaven and earth. No sense in closing your eyes and disappearing into yourself—your same old self. We do that every day, especially if we meditate. “Enjoy the site of your teacher,” I had learned.
But apparently that was not the teaching from this teacher.
(By the way, for what it’s worth Da Free John/Adi Da—ne’ Franklin Jones– later made claims and statements and such outlandish demands of his followers that it became apparent that he had, at some point,  gone off the rails, at least somewhat, as western gurus are prone to do. Nevertheless, for many years he proved quite helpful for many of us as a lively introduction to what he aptly named The Great Tradition of Spiritual Awakening. He died in 2008 at the relatively young age of 69. May he rest in peace.)
Because of that early Da Freebie influence I was one of the few last night who mostly kept my eyes open, just to watch and be with and enjoy this new guru lady. I should here confess that I generally love new guru ladies, having known many of them in my time, and am deeply, deeply grateful for their work. In my view, we can’t have too many guru ladies. As Mao put it, “Let ten thousand flowers bloom.” The time and the planet are ready for more blooming, blossoming guru ladies.
So we meditated. And meditated. And meditated. Or at least we were quiet, with most of our eyes closed. I confess, I looked at my watch again. And then again. When it got to be 7:30, with no one having said anything yet—no one even making eye contact  (the guru lady was not one of the ubiquitous “gazers”—at least not yet)—I started doing some calculations. Half an hour ago, at the start of the evening, seeing the basket, I had chipped in twenty bucks, the requested donation. The program was advertised to run from 7 to 9. So for this first thirty minutes I was already in for five bucks worth of satsang.
I got to thinking that our local cheap theater charges four bucks to see a fairly decent and recent movie on the big screen while enjoying the comfort of plush lean back chairs. Yes, of course, the popcorn costs twelve bucks (or thereabouts) but for four bucks you get an hour or two of million-dollar entertainment, diversion, shoot-em up car chase and/or fall in love all over again, in spite of the odds. Sorry to say, such a comparison went through my cowboy brain, there at 7:30, five bucks and counting into satsang.
Shortly thereafter, thank God, she finally came alive, at least a little.      I knew she was alive because she started muttering. Really, just muttering. Still with her eyes closed. Like someone coming out of a coma.
I naturally assumed she was talking to us, but she was doing it in such a low, soft, muttering voice that I, an old geezer, couldn’t understand her. What the hell was she saying? I assumed—or at least hoped—that she would eventually open her eyes and actually speak up, talk to us, like a normal human being, but she just kept muttering. I was only third row back. I didn’t want to miss the second feature.
“What?” I accidentally said out loud. (Truly, it was an accident. Or least not intentionally public.) This prompted her to open her eyes—the first time since she sat down—and stare straight at me.
“What?” she asked back.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, but in a normal voice. “I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
“Please move closer,” she immediately said. So I moved down to the first row. And then she turned to her sound man—sound woman. “Please turn up the microphone,” she said.
(There were only ten of us, total, in the room, so you can appreciate the low-level “holy whispering,” or muttering she was engaging if she needed both a microphone/sound system and for me to move from third row to first.)
“Can everybody else hear me?” she asked, in a fairly normal voice. In her normal voice I could hear her just fine. Only in her special “watch . . .the. . .space. . .between . . .your . . .thoughts” low-level muttering was it hard to hear. But everybody else had heard her just fine, or so they said.
When she was finally finished guiding us to The Presence btween our thoughts —which it apparently was assumed she had a special knack to contact and process and transmit and share with others—she then went into “gazing” mode. She knew all the tricks.
I suspect it was Grandpa Ramana Maharshi that started this practice, which gurus and guru-esses have been practicing ever since. The idea, or hope, is that when the guru stares into your eyes he/she can see the Divine truth of your being, all the way down to your socks. Such powerful divine seeing has the potential to free you of many inner devilish entanglements. And indeed, guru literature from around the world offers many testimonies of deep release, enlightenment and even physical healing of long term ailments simply from the glance of the guru. It apparently happened quite often with Ramana Maharshi.
So at guru school they apparently teach the guru to lock eyes and hold the gaze for an extended period. At devotee school you learn you are supposed to try to hold the gaze and let the transmission fill you, or even better dissolve you, so you and the guru—The Presence Giver—are one.
Stories about Ramana Maharshi indicate this “awakening” via the gaze of the guru happened all the time with him. People would recognize, and dissolve into their own infinite nature simply by his gaze. So be it. I don’t think it was something Ramana was trying to do. It was his natural, ordinary way of looking at the world, except when he was cutting up the vegetables.
All said, the Gaze is a much more direct and less risky path to experiencing infinite nature than, say, mescaline or mushrooms or a thirty day juice and water fast. Stories are told all over the world of the effectiveness of “The Gaze,” though it seems to have become somewhat “mandatory” rather than spontaneous in many contemporary satsang settings.
I’m convinced Jesus was able to heal the multitudes primarily because all he saw was God, Perfect Love, everywhere he looked. When someone looks at you with perfect, unconditional love, it undoubtedly can indeed be life-transforming. Mothers and newborns share this gaze when they look into each other’s eyes.  Such a  gaze is not nearly as prevalent by the time the newborns become teens.
Alas, last night’s guru gaze was more akin to the gaze I have seen from various of my stop smoking clients who have a trace or more of schizophrenia or autism: someone stares at you way longer than the socially accepted norm, and the stare does not necessarily feel benign. You don’t know what the hell they’re thinking, but it feels a little creepy.
With last night’s guru-ess I assumed, or at least hoped, she was thinking, transmitting something benign. But the “openness” she was trying to express with her gaze seemed to have the opposite effect on me. I found myself closing up. I had a sense of someone not being completely honest, or at least completely grounded in her relationships. Nevertheless, having been to devotee training, I managed to meet her gaze, kept extended eye contact, kept staring back at her, hoping I could feel the transmission. We stared at each other until she gazed at someone else.  Alas, I didn’t feel much. I guess sometimes I’m just an old crank. Perhaps in a different place, a different time, things might have been different.
After going around the room with The Gaze, she finally opened up to questions. To my way of thinking, she hadn’t said much, in her muttering guided meditation, that I could follow, or be inspired with. From her flyer, I knew she did have good credentials. She had studied with some well-known teachers and now was out on her own holding satsangs all over the country and in Europe. She also offered “retreats” and “intensives.” It seems she has a following.
“I work best in responding to your questions,” she said, again, a fairly common ploy among those SItting in the Chair I once saw Francis Lucille address a group of over five hundred people by starting with this assertion. I’ve seen other teachers do the same, usually after a session of The Gaze. I appreciate its usefulness, but again it often leads to a sense of “A special he/she with the answers” and a “we/us with the questions.” For those who actually do have the answers, the vision, the Presence, such an interchange can of course be life transforming. But that’s an early stage on the pilgrimage. When we recognize that the answers are everywhere, and that everyone has access to them, what should the group structure look like?
Nobody seemed to have a question. Or were just so moved by her transmission of The Presence that they were now at a loss for words. So, after an appropriate amount of silence, and just because I’m that type of guy, I finally asked,  “How well do you function at Wal-Mart?”
“What?” the guru lady asked. She didn’t understand my question. I can’t blame her. So I explained.
“I’m an old guy. And these days my spiritual life seems to be simplifying, becoming very ordinary. If we put too much emphasis on spirituality being other-worldly, we sometimes forget to practice when we’re at Wal-mart.”

(I once asked Rupert Spira, a very down-to-earth yet other-worldly non- duality teacher, how well he functioned in Wal-Mart. His response was that when he’s in Wal-Mart he is generally trying to find the aisle where they hide the lens wipes. I love that guy.)

Rupert Spira

The guru lady looked at me funny. And then the thought occurred to me, which I blurted out:  “maybe you yourself never go to Wal-Mart?” I was being honest. It struck me that maybe she really didn’t ever go to Wal-Mart.
“What do you mean by other-worldly?” she asked, somewhat defensively. “I’m not other-worldly.”
“When we come together as a group and spend thirty minutes with our eyes closed and not talking, that seems like we’re off in another world,” I said. I didn’t mention her trance-like mutterings or “other-worldly” silent gazing.
After a few back and forth clarifying words between us, she confidently assured me she was indeed able to stay completely open, completely present while at Wal-Mart.  And then she asked me if I had a “real” question.
“Sure. How can we love more?” I asked. Her flyer said something about this satsang being a “bridge to love,” or something like that. And we hadn’t talked about love yet. I was giving her an opening.
She began answering my question, but I lost the thread of her thinking pretty quick. As I remember she basically said we shouldn’t get caught up in our own limited identities, and should instead let the divine move through us, which was obviously good advice. I was nodding my head in agreement, letting her know I was not one of those who likes to argue with the guruess. But I didn’t feel swamped in love, either.
At the end of her answer, I thanked her, which again is what we learn to do in satsang. It’s a convenient social signal to let the guru know we’re satisfied with the answer and grateful for the help and ready to let the microphone pass on to someone else (in need of help) . She accepted my thanks, and the implied invitation to move on, even though I didn’t have a microphone.
Curiously, the next person did use a microphone, even though, again, there were only ten of us in the room. And that next person did start, in accordance with proper satsang role playing, by holding the microphone, staring at the guru, not saying anything for a long, long moment, breathing deep to show how special, moving, and deep this (yet to be) conversation will be. (Sorry—again my cranky cowboy geezer mindset is showing through.) Many more questioners followed suit, and the Guru answerer helped as best she could.
It was an interesting evening. I deeply appreciate the guru lady’s boldness in what she is doing, or trying to do. It seems here in the west we still don’t have the cultural or organizational infrastructure in place to meet and share our non-dual natures in a very ordinary, yet inspirational and evolutionarily useful fashion. This guru lady, along with many, many others, is carving a path through the wilderness. (Again, there were only ten of us there, giving evidence that she was indeed “a voice crying in the wilderness,” though a voice alternately muttering and irritated.)
At the end of the evening we were invited to put our names on the e-mail list, put more into the donation basket and sign up for the somewhat expensive weekend “intensive” retreat. It was clear that maybe six or seven or the ten were already devotees, helpers, companions or students of the satsang lady. So only three or four of us were new folks, the true “public.” So be it. Numbers don’t tell much of the deeper story.
Sorry to say, but quite understandably, after the meeting adjourned I wasn’t sought out for further conversation or offered a polite openning to talk with any of the other folks, even though there were so few of us there.  In the meeting I had not adequately confined or conformed myself to the currently accepted “satsang protocol,” and thus was probably perceived as a newbie to this whole transmission from the guru biz or simply was an old geezer who didn’t get it—didn’t get what was happening here.
But I did get it. I do get it. We can come together to share good company (which is what satsang means in Sanskrit.) We can share what we have in common—this presence (Presence) that both precedes and transcends time and space, that is neither subjective nor objective but is sweet, tender, alive, obvious: our common ground, our secret love, that which is so hard to talk about but which nevertheless needs to be talked about, for our own sanity, and the evolution and elevation of the human race. I do get that.
But we’re still learning how best to do this—how best to come together for such a purpose. Let’s don’t solidify—stultify—the process here too early on, for we are still early. We need to somehow make it easier, more natural, more open—this satsang, this good company we share. We’re still in the very early stages. The $4.00 movie is still right down the block.

(I’d be interested in hearing your response to this little essay. Please contact me via the form below…)
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Jun 08

Why We Drink Beer and Smoke Bud: the Big Mind

Had a few monks over after work on Friday to drink some beer, smoke a little herb and play bocce ball. (All three of these are legal recreations, here in Colorado.) Last year in my back yard I put in a dedicated bocce ball court, for just such upbeat sacramental occasions.
(In our sangha, bud is sometimes used as one of the sacraments, while beer and bocce are still recognized as “secondary” supports” to a joyful, e.g., enlightened lifestyle. )
Some of the monks,of course, following a higher, more disciplined– or a least more stringent–path, imbibed neither bud nor beer, though their bocce performance seemed neither enhanced nor depressed by their abstinence.
In a pause in the festivities, we talked briefly about our own personal daily routine of either imbibing or refraining from such substances. I mentioned that in a book of existentialist philosophy I came across an excerpt from Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception that, to my mind, neatly explained, finally, why we do sometimes imbibe.
Alcohol, as we know, clearly does not make us smarter, and weed tends to slow us down and make us a little silly. So why do we do it? Why are we so attracted? Huxley’s insight, inspired by his experience with mescaline, helps explain. ( I myself do smoke weed on occasion, but generally not. Why not? See my book, The Potless Pot High: How to Get High, Clear and Spunky without Weed.)
Here’s the excerpt from Huxley:

      “. . .the function of the brain and nervous system and sense organs is in the main eliminative and not productive. Each person is at at each moment capable of remembering all that ever happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge by shutting out most of what we should perceive or remember at any moment, leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically ‘useful.’ According to this theory each one of us is potentially Mind at Large. But in so far as we are animals, our business is at all costs to survive. To make biological survival possible, Mind at Large has to be funneled through the reducing valve of brain and nervous system. What comes out on the other end is a measly trickle of the kind of consciousness which will allow us to stay alive on the surface of this particular planet. To formulate and express the content of this reduced awareness, man has invented . . .languages.”
(Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception, quoted in Colin Wilson’s Beyond the Outsider, p. 151.)

In a nutshell, we imbibe in order to “turn off” the insistent inner mechanisms that would keep us focused on the daily grind of mere survival. We shut down our brains and nervous systems a bit with these substances in order to get a peek into the Big Mind ever-operating here, to hear the Music of the Spheres ever playing here, to refresh our memories of what the hell we’re doing here anyway, other than merely surviving.
As we all can attest, weed and alcohol are not the most efficient ways, especially over the long haul, to stay tuned to the Big Mind. These substances do tend, in fact, to inhibit survival routines. But they are handy, quick and familiar.
Likewise, bocce ball, and other games, tend to put our survival gears in neutral for a bit, allowing us to relax, laugh, feel connected with our Bigger, Funner Self. Experiencing such connection, we feel at home.
And we all yearn to go home. Thus do we occassionally imbibe beer and bud, with our buds, on a friday after work. Yes?

Please let me know your thoughts on this:
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Apr 01

The Cheshire Cat as Monk or Nun

Give up everything but vision and grins

The Basic Renunciation

+++At Heart Mountain Monastery our basic “renunciation practice” is to renounce crabbiness, unhappiness, worry, ill-at-ease-ness. We intuit that the ideal daily life of a contemporary monk or a nun is a life of joy, of peace and especially (with all the wars raging and whatnot) good humor. Whether we engage this practice while living in a cave in the mountains or while shopping at Wal-Mart or working on the trash truck is beside the point.
+++In the monastic traditions, in both the East and the West, (mostly Buddhist or Christian, although the Jews, the Jains and the Hindus also have long monastic traditions) monks and nuns make the decision to “renounce the world” and live a life of poverty, obedience and chastity, generally within a relationship to an institutional framework. Such a renunciation comes as part of the quest for a closer walk with God—or an awakening to the Buddha mind, or simply a deeper understanding of reality, of joy and peace. Such seems a worthy life quest.
+++Of course, traditional renunciation also implied the monk or nun would be given a daily allotment of food, some clothing and shelter, and most often expected to conform to a fairly regimented daily life of prayer and/or service to others without much personal decision-making. (Thus, “obedience.”) Studying the scriptures and histories it’s clear that such renunciation and such an environment “worked” for many exalted souls. The monastic tradition has survived for many thousands of years because it reflects a basic human need.
+++Questions arise, of course, with such a life. First, the tricky question of who will do the regimenting? Who gets to decide who hoes the garden, who washes dishes and who gets to review the latest movie releases to see what’s proper for a budding monk or nun? And who gets to define “chastity?” Who gets the new comfy silk robes and who has to wear the old scratchy one with holes?
+++Early Buddhists came up with 227 specific rules for their monks and nuns, many of them rather silly, such as “do not to keep an extra robe for more than ten days,” or “don’t use money,” or “don’t ask for another bowl unless your bowl has at least five cracks in it.” The Rule of St. Benedict, from which most of the Christian monastic tradition is based, is 73 chapters long, each chapter chocka-block full of various rules, do’s and don’ts.
+++At Heart Mountain Monastery, we recognize that one’s own inner joy, or peace, can be the wise counsel, the true authority in all matters, large and small. This may seem a dangerous practice, since in our contemporary culture following one’s joy is most often associated simply with “stimulating one’s senses,” e.g., drugs, sex and rock and roll. If we have not yet trained ourselves to hear our deeper joy, our deeper peace, then drugs, sex and rock and roll may indeed for a season act as our teachers.
+++In our maturity, however, we discover that there’s a peace, a joy extant within that is not dependent on any outer form or object, circumstance or relationship. This inner peace or joy is not even dependent on our thoughts, or feelings, let alone our new shirt or blouse, or the promotion at work.

James Swartz, in How to Attain Enlightenment, writes, “One is never attached to a house or a car — or even people— although it seems so. We are attached to what these things mean in our mind.”

+++Candice O’Denver, in the Great Freedom teaching, suggests that all of our thoughts, feelings, sensations and circumstances (actually, all phenomena within and without) can be understood as “points of view” rising up in awareness. When we are not attached to our points of view, and simply resting in our natural awareness (which itself is peace and joy), we have succeeded in the “basic renunciation.
+++Even more simply, renouncing, or letting go, seeing through all false identities— renouncing identification with anything less than formless bliss, objectless being — is the basic renunciation offered to mature monks and nuns. It leaves us free to love the universe, and,  akin to the Cheshire Cat, unattached to anything whatsoever, except maybe an easy inner grin.
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Mar 05

WHY BE A MONK OR A NUN

monkLately, I’ve been happy being a monk.

In fact, when telemarketers call, and start in on their spiel, I often politely interrupt and tell  the economically enslaved person on the other end of the line,  “Sorry, friend, we are monks and nuns here, and don’t . . .  (answer surveys, need new siding, have mortgage issues, etc.) So we are not good prospects for you …”  Most telemarketers, having never heard the “monks and nuns” excuse, will quickly and politely agree then say goodbye.

Telling the telemarketer that we’re monks and nuns is what Al Franken might call, “Joking on the square”— sort of joking but also sort of telling the truth.  My wife and I, and many of our friends, really are, at heart, monks and nuns, though I’m one of the few (so far) with a business card admitting as much.

So okay, the question naturally arises: Why in the world, in this day and age, would anyone want to be—or agree to be—a monk or a nun?

The answer, of course, is that the world, especially in this day and age, desperately needs more monks and nuns, or more precisely, the world needs the clear, natural, compassionate vision of a monk or a nun. (We are talking here, of course, of the generic monk or nun, and not necessarily the monk or nun of any given tradition, be that tradition Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Sufi or NASCAR, though the monastic traditions expressed by these sects are not necessarily excluded.)

In small things and large—from family dinners and PTA meetings to drone warfare and economic injustices— the wisdom vision of a monk or a nun is urgently needed. A monk or a nun is led to withdraw his or her allegiance to the world’s vision in order to discover for himself or herself the true vision of the singular (mono) reality that underlies all appearances. With a direct experience of this underlying reality, the monk or nun then re-enters the world to share the relief and love and healing that reality always offers.

In the contemporary world the true monk or nun is most often anonymous and outwardly indistinguishable from those who live and suffer under a dualistic vision of reality. The terms ”monk,” “nun,” and “monastery” all derive from the Greek root word monarchos  meaning singular, or alone (e.g., non-dual, or, in Sanskrit, advaita.) The best reason for anyone to accept the label and habit (so to speak) of a nun or a monk is simply because that person has had at least a glimpse of the non-dual (mono) nature of reality and recognizes the wisdom and potential artistry of more fully aligning their lives— thoughts, words, and deeds— with this non-dual reality.

In my own case, I’ve had wonderful teachers, be it for a season or a lifetime,  who have offered not only a glimpse but, at least on occasion,  the eye-popping full monty, totally naked raunchy burlesque of non-dual reality. (That’s the other beauty of living in these times— such a rich smorgasbord of authentic (and mostly authentic) non-dual teachers.)

Last Sunday morning a tax-lawyer buddy-monk and I were talking over these matters and he mentioned that in the tax business a distinction is made between “Recognized Gains” and “Realized Gains.”  A recognized gain is when you’ve made a good investment, say for example in the stock market when your stock has gone from $10.00 to $20.00, but you haven’t yet “cashed out,” not yet sold it. So although the investment looks good right now, the price could suddenly plunge and we’d be vulnerable.  A realized gain, however, is when yes, by gum, we’ve made a good investment and have the actual cash on the barrel head to prove it. Even if the price plunges, we’ve made our bundle.

We saw this as a nice metaphor for our own “monk (and nun) experience,” and the experience of many of our teachers. Many of us have indeed recognized, maybe on many occasions, the non-dual nature of reality.  We’ve made  good investments in our practice and learning. And then something happens that plunges us back into the dualistic vision (which is another term for the suffering vision.) We’ve recognized, but not necessarily realized ( at least not fully) non-duality.  And we’ve had a few teachers who likewise turned out to be recognizers, rather than realizers, clearly having lost their locing vision of reality. But that’s a story for another time.

So who would want to be a monk or a nun. “God has a planted the seed of a monk (or a nun) in every heart,” wrote the old Gethsemane Abbot. It happens to you, watch out, just by reading essays like this to the end!

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Jan 19

The “Muddy I” Inquiry

who's this under the mud?

Was hiking in the hills (through the mud) with some friends a day or so ago, and as friends and hikers are want to do, ended up talking about the bigger picture.  One thread led to another and, as we were heading back down the hill, I found myself asking my buddy on the muddy path in front of me,

“So do you think we can know ourselves?”

“No,” was his immediate response, as if he’d pondered this question previously.

I confess I was surprised, even taken-aback.  I mean, was Socrates just playing with our heads when he encouraged us to know ourselves?  Leading us down a blind alley?

But one of the things I like and respect about this particular hiking buddy  —  he doesn’t blindly accept the common cultural assumptions. He’s a retired lawyer, with an undergraduate degree in physics and a confessed atheist. (“I don’t believe in the God you don’t believe in either,” I like to remind him.)

I had been suggesting (as others have suggested before me) that inquiry was a method by which we might come to know ourselves. His argument was that even the questions—the form of inquiry—that we used to inquire about ourselves were culturally biased. I countered that inquiry was a means by which we might get around our cultural biases, or at least see through them.

For many of us, the Indian sage, Ramana Maharshi,  is the father, or least the Grand Uncle, the Revitalizer, re-introducer  of the technique of self-inquiry for the modern times. From him, and his teachings, a whole raft of “realizers” has been loosed upon the world, some of whom are so close we can shake their hands.

Ramana  encouraged all those who came to him to constantly inquire, who am I, who is it that is present, what is it that thinks, what is the root of this I sense?  He encouraged us to turn attention inward to look at the root of this feeling of “I”.

Are these questions—inquiries into the self—culturally biased? Perhaps.

Nevertheless,  when we do earnestly inquire in this way,  the  ”I” tends to melt, or disappear, while the sense of peaceable presence, or being remains.  Maybe my question to my buddy  might have more accurately  been stated, “Can we know ourselves as presence, as being?”

Or maybe the question could have been,  after he suggested that we can’t know ourselves,  “Can we know our false selves?”

Or, do some people experience (and thus express) from their authentic , natural selves, while  others experience (and thus express) from less authentic, less fluid structures?  And might the first be able to deal with the mud, within and without,  in perhaps more practical, un-emotional ways?

Can we know ourselves? Can we know our false selves? Such questions, I would posit, are worthy of pursuing, culturally biased, or  mud laden  though they may be.

Jan 27

Why On Earth a MONASTERY HERE IN 2021?

“The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man.”                                                                                                        —-Ortega E. Gassett

This is a game we play– a life game.

We at Heart Mountain Monastery  pretend every person on earth is a monk  or a nun.

We have dedicated our lives to the singular (singular= mono-nun-o) vision of peace on earth (“let it begin with me.“)

You can play or not play. No pressure.

####

Although throughout history the monastery has been identified by an enclosed, physically defined plot of land, administered by a particular sect within a particular spiritual tradition, the contemporary monastery — or at least Heart Mountain Monastery– has no walls. Our monastery is a mental and emotional and spiritual perception— or metaphor, an understanding— of how the universe, works. Such an understanding,  such a perception is available to anyone, anywhere, regardless of faith, religion or spiritual maturity.

Nevertheless, at least a modicum of spiritual maturity generally accompanies those drawn to the monastic path, or discipline. (Without such maturity, when invited to consider the monastic lifestyle, the young souls, less evolved among us are likely to laugh, even guffaw, chortle, “yea right.”)

But the monastic discipline is a discipline of joy, of peace and ease. We find the monastic metaphor quite useful in first articulating and then living a lifestyle of  peace, joy and good humor, here in 2021.

We view the contemporary , un-walled monastic consciousness as the “flowering” on earth of the seeds planted over a four thousand year period by holy men and women in every spiritual and religious discipline. We also recognize such a consciousness as the next necessary evolutionary stage emerging out of the obvious limitations of scientific materialism.

We are a minority, of course, at least at this point in time.

Those of us who practice the monastic discipline– which is to consistently recognize the presence of love, peace and happiness in ourselves and others, and to recognize all the ground we walk upon as holy ground, (monastic grounds) and to understand that all the actions we engage are simply means by which to enjoy the Divine (Holographic, Loving, Ease-full)  Presence in this moment– those of us who practice such a happy, natural discipline recognize that this discipline bestows the highest form of grace and transcendental authority available to any human on earth– the grace to be fully human, fully present, fully awake to the needs of the moment. Just as importantly, at least to a degree, by practicing such natural joy we are also gifted the skill by which to share  such joy and confidence with others.

(If that last mouthful of a paragraph resonated with you, you might be a natural monk or nun! Glad to meet you!)

Although the expressions of holographic love, peace and happiness which monks and nuns offer have uncountable variations around the world, the presence of peace and happiness is the same, and it is recognizable, one to another, immediately and without fail. Although love, peace and happiness (three words for the same Presence) is absolute– complete, and infinitely, eternally, dynamically still, unformed yet full, gently blissful (how can one describe love, peace and happiness?) — the expressions of love, peace and happiness are artful, with beginnings, middles and ends, progressive, unfolding, paradoxical. The experience of love, peace and happiness is the experience of life’s essence.  Words can point, but cannot contain.

So at Heart Mountain Monastery we recognize that we–every person on earth– is a monk or nun.  We are  all brothers and sisters, here in the sacred institution of modernity. The different nations are simply rooms within the same cosmic house. The different faiths are lamps which light the different rooms. That we have brothers and sisters in all the rooms, seeing by different lamps, does not diminish the fact that we are one house, one family, and the house is the Lord’s— Krishna’s, Allah’s, Jehovah’s, Shiva’s,  the Buddha Mind, Atman, — and we are all His (Her, Love’s) children, companions and fellow artisans. This is so simple, so obvious, yet to live our lives this way is a revolutionary commitment.

The revolution is at hand. The spiritual awakening across the globe is reflected in the spontaneously growing commitment to the wider view, the higher life, the joyful presence which the monastic discipline incorporates. Without a conscious connection to Heart Mountain Monastery, and yet with a conscious commitment to the heart’s great ascension, millions of people the world around have now joined in the power and authority which only love can grant. We see these others as brothers and sisters, just as they recognize us, near and far, openly or not.

Peace and joy, love and wisdom are awakening on the earth, and we all and each are the vessels for such awakening to occur. Heart Mountain Monastery is just one of the many “gathering places” for this awakening to express itself.

Help yourself to what you find here.  The monastic metaphor, and lifestyle, is, however, potluck.

Oct 10

How to Stop Smoking in 15 Easy Years

  Yay, it’s here!
  After threatening to write this book for many decades, How to Stop Smoking in 15 Easy Years— A Slacker’s Guide to Final Freedom arrived on my doorstep this week. Twenty copies!

  I’m tickled with this book. In all humility, I know it’s different, and easier and fresher and funner than any other stop smoking book on the market. (I think I’ve read them all.) I’m also tickled with it because I know it works. My friends and clients tell me so.
  My publisher says I should give away these first twenty copies to people who might write a review on Amazon (or for the New York Times! Or who are simply willing to tell their friends.) I’m happy to do that. I’d also be happy to give away a few copies to anybody who actually needs a copy to dissolve their own smoking addiction, and truly can’t afford the low cost Amazon and/or Kindle price tag. So if you fit into any of those categories, e-mail me here: bear@smokersfreedomschool.com I’ll get a copy to you soon.

  I’m tickled. It’s here. Let the fun begin.
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