Tenacity & Courage

Teach me to be tenaciously and cautiously courageous instead of being afraid.

Metaphysical Meditations:

Overcoming Fear and Worry, p. 92

Paramahansa Yogananda

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I once confused buff and bluster for courage and that, most often, sadly ended with blush and blunder. Like the Chihuahua facing off Godzilla, I often stood in harms way where drugs and alcohol were concerned without a care for body and soul. The way it worked for me was that I eventually came to a dead-end where I had nowhere else to turn; where pride kept me from perhaps calling a family member or someone else that could help. My friends no longer took my calls. It was a desperate place to be in and the darkness overwhelming. I haven’t had to venture there since I turned my will and my life over to the Heart of Compassion but I know that fear and the terrors of addiction lurk around the corner should I ever forget. This is a cautious fear and quite useful as it gives me courage to go on past that fear and onto tackling those fears that hold me back. With a cautious courage and tenacity, I find peace in the ability to take appropriate and productive action.

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The Wolf is a Dog without Manners

And so the Steppenwolf had two natures, a human and a wolfish one. This was his fate, and it may well be that it was not a very exceptional one. There must have been many good men who had a good deal of the dog or the fox, or the fish or the serpent in them without experiencing any exceptional difficulties on that account. In such cases the man and the fox, the man and the fish lived together and neither did the other any harm… In the case of Harry, however, it was different. In him the man and the wolf did not go together, they did not help each other, but were in continual and deadly enmity. The one existed solely to harm the other…

Steppenwolf;

Treatise on the Steppenwolf ,

Herman Hesse

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I have a few favorite books that describe my condition perfectly and Steppenwolf is one of them. The fact is I am compelled by forces from within that others seem to have made peace with. Some of the other books that hit the mark for me are; The Marshlands by Andre Gide, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. These give me the assurance that I am not alone. These are books that only those who are like me can grasp in their entirety because they don’t hedge on my condition. “For example, if Harry, as man, had a beautiful thought, felt a fine and noble emotion, or performed a so-called good act, then the wolf bared his teeth at him and laughed and showed him with bitter scorn how laughable this whole noble show was in the eyes of the beast…”
    For me, it wasn’t enough to quit drinking; I had to do something to tame the beast because I never could kill it. That took more action than putting the plug on the jug. The spiritual way of life had to be completely integrated into every aspect of my life. Others don’t seem to be compelled by forces beyond their comprehension because they, by all appearances, have been born with a tame beast. I have to face the fact, even sober as the proverbial judge; I have been born with the wildest of beasts before anything can be done about my condition and not compare myself with others.

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The Eagle Swoops

Although the result of our actions may not have matured yet, they will inevitably ripen, given the right conditions. Usually we forget what we do, and it is only long afterward that the results catch up with us. By then we are unable to connect them with their causes. “Imagine an eagle,” says Jikme Lingpa, “It is flying, high in the sky. It casts no shadow. Nothing shows that it is there. Then suddenly it spies its prey, dives, and swoops to the ground. And then it drops, its menacing shadow appears.”

Glimpse Afer Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoche

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Every now and then, whenever my actions lack compassion, I can hear my dear friend, Big Al, saying, “You can do anything you want if you are willing to pay the price for it.” It is fairly easy for seeing the truth in this for felonies and misdemeanors. However, the soaring eagle of karma, for living a self-absorbed life of ego gratification, isn’t always that apparent. There is a price for everything, even as minor as envying celebrities who seem to be able to get away with damned near anything. It seems inconsequential but even this class of envy has its price too. Am I willing to pay the price of living vicariously through the lives of those I see on TMZ? Knowing Big Al’s simple axiom is probably the most valuable realization I could have had for liberating my spirit from the wheel of consequences. Isn’t it better to live a simple life free of the vanity of hoping to win the lottery? Isn’t it more productive to busy my hands with whatever task is before me; to do it well, reaping the rewards of compassion? In work and play, the Heart of Compassion soars unseen. The grace of God has been pictured as an eagle and this eagle's blessings are the result of karma too. It is soaring beyond my limited scope as the eagle swoops down to strike my heart with the sublime and often subtle, bliss of God.

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Healing Light of God

I will plunge the gaze of my faith through the window of the spiritual and baptize my body in the healing light of Christ Consciousness.

Paramahansa Yogananda

Metaphysical Meditations

Healing Light of God, p. 72

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If I were a young and healthy man I could afford all kinds of grand theories about health, pain and suffering. But I have actually lived long enough to experience a broad scope of these and my opinion has changed to some degree. I can suffer physical illness and pain but, if I so choose, pain and illness aren’t the cause of my suffering. I can speak with authority on this subject because I have had my share of each. I.e., as I meditate, my mind is distracted by the soreness that is the result of an injured spine. Instead of being distracted by it, why not give it my full attention? Breathe into it… focus on it… don’t let it get away from the magnifying glass held to concentrate the light of the spirit. One doesn’t have to attain any kind of high spiritual power to do this. I can start from where I am… observing without judgment and self-pity… sending love and light to it… taking it in. Then I act on it. In bodhichitta (awakened mind) practice, we breathe in suffering and exhale healing. If I wish to be relieved of my own suffering, the best plan is to take the experience of my own suffering to foster compassion for those who suffer a similar malady… one cancer patient helping another… one alcoholic talking with another… one combat veteran nodding in agreement with another GI’s experience suffering PTSD. The pain doesn’t necessarily go away but the suffering does. The Heart of Compassion is in the business of miracles and we can expect them if we choose the path of compassion.

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The Now & Choices

Today I have a choice. I might not have much more than that but I do have a choice, and with that choice, comes responsibility. Responsibility for the moment I am in is an awesome realization once I see it for what it is. I thought it meant that I don’t make any plans for the future when I first heard about living in “the now”. In actuality, I have found that everything I do now sets up what happens down the road. Drugs and alcohol were very helpful for taking a break from it. But the real deal was that I was merely taking a break from the responsibility of “the now”. In fact, I wasn’t getting out of my self at all by stupefying and dulling that magnificent organization of neurons that are what is left of my brain. That was merely a vain attempt to avoid it via the insanity and neurosis of such evasion and their consequences. I often wondered at the way others seemed to be able to manage responsibilities; even when they were loaded. Such a break can be good for normal folks who still have an “On and Off” switch that works for them because they seem know how to take care of business regardless. However, that reality wasn’t true for me. I had to recognize that my switch was broken. Furthermore, I came to understand that my broken switch was a blessing because I was just never the type of person who could take care of the business of living in “the now”, loaded or not, and thus I was forced to seriously take the actions that would put me there. This involved a familiar spiritual surrender to a Higher Power that neurotics like me find refreshing and energizing. I doubt that this would have happened otherwise.

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Discretion/Honesty

When life presents us with a racking conflict like this (revealing a harmful truth), we cannot be altogether blamed if we are confused. In fact, our very first responsibility is to admit that we are confused. We may have to confess that, for the time being, we have lost all ability to tell right from wrong. Most difficult too, will be the admission that we cannot be certain of receiving God’s guidance because our prayers are so cluttered with wishful thinking. Surely this is the point at which we must seek the counsel of our finest friends. There is nowhere else to go.

The Best of Bill, p. 33

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Where do I find such trusted and finest friends? I look around and I see folks who are often as confused as I am about such matters and have their own predilections to lean towards gossip instead of an honest sharing of a helpful truth about a situation or person. These confusing dilemmas rarely happen at my own convenience and usually when I have no trusted friend around to share them with. If I do nothing a greater harm might come about and I’m hard set to make that judgment towards taking any action at all.

    I know a man with whom I worked closely that was given a job having tremendous responsibility way over his head. To this day I’m not sure whether he was guilty of downright embezzlement or simply bad bookkeeping. Because I’d worked closely with him, when his books were audited, I was often asked if I knew anything about what he’d been up to. The truth was that I’d had my suspicions but I feared that by confronting him personally and falsely accusing him, I’d cause him more harm than good. Furthermore, had I shared my suspicions with anyone in our close knit community, even my most trusted friends, I knew it was hugely possible that the rumor mill might have caused even more harm. Doing nothing in these situations is sometimes the hardest of all things to do.

   These are the dilemmas that are shared with the greatest discretion… outside of the community if possible. I was advised both ways… to hold my peace and, conversely, to tell someone of authority in our community. I have found that there are times when I have to lean heavily on prayer and meditation where no human power will do. It always comes down to taking personal responsibility above all else.

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Intelligence & Ignorance

In his first teaching, Buddha explained that the root cause of suffering is ignorance. But where exactly is this ignorance? And how does it display itself? Let’s take an everyday example. Think about those people --- we all know some --- who are gifted with a remarkably powerful and sophisticated intelligence. Isn’t it puzzling how, instead of helping them, as you might expect, it seems only to make them suffer more? It is almost as if their brilliance is directly responsible for their pain.
    What is happening is quite clear: this intelligence of ours is captured and held hostage by ignorance, which then makes use of it freely for its own ends. This is how we can be extraordinarily intelligent and yet absolutely wrong, at one and the same time.

Glimpse After Glimpse

Sogyal Rinpoce

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There was a time I felt that I had no chance at attaining any sort of liberating spirituality because I wasn’t pure enough or intelligent enough to “get it”. It seemed to me that all of this enlightenment was for other people whose lives had not been held hostage by the same demons as mine. What Sogyal Rinpoche seems to be saying in this meditation is that we are indeed held hostage by ignorance no matter how pure and intelligent we might be. 

   It was refreshing news to me that I didn’t have to be a recruit for Mensa, or to be born into a yogic tradition from which no impurities were ever allowed in food or thought, in order to “get it”. The good news is that I don’t have to be the sharpest pencil in the drawer to sit and meditate. I don’t have to be a genius to be able to examine my motives and check them at the door before I sit. I can be compassionate and caring no matter what my mental capacity is because these qualities and actions are accessible to anyone regardless. All that is required of me is that I surrender to the basic genius of the Cosmic Intelligence of our Creator.

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