Spiritual practices are a primary way to embody Oneness.

Oneness is a foundational truth deeply etched in the Reiki teachings, and across all wisdom traditions. In Reiki the practitioner is one with herself, her environment, others (especially when giving Reiki to another), the cosmos at large, Reiki itself, and the Divine. The most accessible felt sense of Oneness through the Reiki teachings is compassion in most cases.

— Pamir Kiciman

Here are some of the ways in which this plays out:

Ki, life force or life energy: Ki can be understood as the animating force that drives creation. Since ki is present in everything, Reiki is always an experience of oneness. Ki is universal, which makes Reiki a universal experience. We touch everything when we practice Reiki because of the presence of ki.

While ki as energy connects us with everything, Ki as a set of universal qualities does the same. Divine wisdom, compassion, power, and light are intrinsic to life and accompany Reiki with every application. Therefore Reiki is always an experience of being at one with life.

You can learn a lot more about Reiki and ki in The Action of Ki in Reiki.

The Hara: This is a one-point. It’s single and whole. The hara gives the mind a home; gives emotions a ground. When thoughts and emotions are flighty, the hara allows a sense of oneness by grounding them. Otherwise thoughts and emotions which are wispy, multidirectional and often rapid tend to take us to places that aren’t helpful to us.

Refer to these two detailed posts about the hara for the above to make much more sense:

The Hara: Sacred Center and The Hara: Seat of Enlightenment

Breath: The breath is reliable, rhythmic and even. It’s always there. It’s common to all life. Even oceans and single cell organisms ‘breathe.’ The flow of the breath connects us to everything. Breath is the very expression of life.

Hands-on Reiki: This is an experience of oneness because it addresses all levels of being: physical, energetic, emotional, mental, and spiritual. This is the case when giving Reiki to self or others. The palms are the major outlet for Reiki and since this involves the flow of Ki (both as energy and universal principles), a natural oneness is available in this application and experience.

Reiki is also a great way of making the heart whole. When the emotional heart is healed and the spiritual heart is developed, oneness as a basic truth is embodied with ease and understanding.

Refer to Wisdom and Compassion as the Path in Reiki for a thorough understanding of how Reiki is a practice of universal truths.

Practical Reiki Applications: Reiki’ng food and water creates oneness with what you ingest. Reiki’ng pets and animals creates oneness with other life forms. Both of these generate the understanding that ‘other’ is in form only, never in essence, because there’s only one Life.

We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Related:

Oneness in Spirit and in the World

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Oneness is like a butterfly: It has two wings but one body. — Pamir Kiciman

Oneness feels healthy because you’re one with yourself, whole, in harmony.

Oneness makes you happy because again you’re one with yourself, whole, in harmony.

And it’s freeing because you’re not stuck in separation, limited, and disconnected.

We come from One, we return to One.

In between we lose track, but our Oneness is never lost. It’s always there, underlying all our experiences; and this Oneness can be experienced.

In separation we get lost, we think separation is real, and this leads to misery, disease, lack, and upset. The world of form in its variety distracts, entertains, tempts, and seduces. But even in the world of form, it’s the Formless that is calling us, it’s the Formless we seek; it’s the Formless that we are.

Remembering that we already are what we seek is the only way to extract ourselves from bypaths and detours, going around in circles, or spinning our wheels in the same spot.

From Oneness we come, to Oneness we return.

This is a natural process. It’s already happening, whether we’re participating consciously or not. When we participate consciously, the sojourn is much happier and healthier. We’re free in all the moments of our lives.

All we have to do is participate in the process. Not only participate by living on earth, living in society, in our families, and jobs, but participate with the awareness, the expanded awareness of knowing that there’s a grand old process in place of oneness returning to Oneness, oneness seeking Oneness, oneness knowing that Oneness is within; Oneness only seeking itself.

Therefore there’s no seeking. There’s only recognition. You are what you’re seeking.

Listen and feel into the intuition of oneness within. The feeling of oneness is love; the experience of oneness is realization of your true nature. — Adyashanti

Participating in this natural process consciously is harmonious, healthy, freeing, loving, and peaceful because we’re not engaged in being neurotic, fearful, or having turbulent experiences through our emotions and thoughts.

We’re in duality on earth, and duality is turbulent. We make it even more turbulent by not recognizing that our essential Oneness isn’t absent from us, not separate from us, isn’t anywhere to be found, to be achieved or attained, there’s nowhere to go to get it, there’s no distance to travel.

It’s right here with us in every experience, in every thought of stress or upset, of fear, and in every thought of harmony and love, of joy.

We are the Oneness we’re looking for.

We are the Oneness we’re waiting for.

We’re also participating in the Oneness process in our bodies. If we participate in it consciously the body becomes something other then its physical shape and form. Rather than absolute identification that we’re a body, we’re able to understand and recognize that we have a body, it serves a function, its function is important, it’s part of our daily experience, but it isn’t an ultimate reality; it isn’t an unending reality.

It’s simply a container for the Formless, a form for Oneness to express itself in and through, by which we’re able to experience.

The body gives us an opportunity to experience in the world of form that which we couldn’t otherwise. It’s paradoxical and confusing and also simple, understandable and recognizable. We just have to switch our view. Sit with it, walk with it. Oneness is our eternal companion.

It doesn’t disappear. It can’t be destroyed. It can’t be damaged. It can’t be reduced. It can’t be diminished.

Instead of trying to figure it all out, which is impossible, I suggest you ask, “What’s ultimately behind this set of eyes?” Turn around to see what is looking. — Adyashanti

Related:

How Oneness Leads to Energetic Integrity

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© Pamir Kiciman 2011

Another Earth Day has gone by. It’s important for the Earth to have her own day. It creates awareness. It also gets commercialized. That’s why I waited before writing about April 22nd. I wanted another reminder even if it’s only two days after.

The Earth needs our daily remembrance.

This blog has always had strong environmental content. Nature spirituality is humanity’s first spirituality, and to this day Nature evokes spirituality. It’s because creation is sacred.

Sacredness is embedded in the heart of life. Could it be any other way? It’s life. Not a machine. Life is soul-infused. Breathing, beating, pulsing. That which breathes us, breathes all life.

We segment life. The root is one and all returns there. It’s spiritual. The foundation of life is spiritual. No matter if it looks secular, it’s still spiritual.

Remembering the Earth is important for a host of reasons that are environmental and ecological, but also spiritual:

Nothing is extraneous to the spiritual life. This is very important to understand. — Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

Our life here is closely knit with the Earth. Without the Earth we wouldn’t be able to have the lives we have. It’s as simple and alerting as that.

We inter-breathe with the rain forests, we drink from the oceans. They are part of our own body. — Thich Nhat Hanh

My PhotoBlog is usually where I celebrate Nature and the Earth with my own images and heart-opening quotes. There is one I’m going to use here as a point of contemplation. I’m sitting under some impressive oaks right now on an unseasonably but welcome cool day in South Florida. There’s a sweetness to the air.

Open to this and see what happens:

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

— Herman Hesse

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cc: katana.barnett

Healing, meditation and spirituality are linked and work together.  Meditation heals, and healing improves meditation. Spirituality is what bonds healing and meditation together.

If you’re having trouble in meditation you may need to receive healing to clear the way. Similarly, meditation will improve your healing ability by raising your consciousness.

The convergence of healing, meditation and spirituality is easily missed. Healing and meditation are foundational  practices of spirituality. The end state of these practices is spirituality itself, with a caveat: Spirituality is an inborn, natural state, and practices aren’t there to get to any state. Although spirituality is already  a part of human makeup, it tends to be left uncovered, unclaimed and unacknowledged. (What is ‘Spiritual’ Practice?)

Often life circumstances are sequenced in a specific pattern that leads to a spiritual ‘awakening,’ or sometimes there’s an affinity to spirituality from early on.

Spirituality is the embodiment of the truth that the way we know ourselves as bodies and individual egos is a very limited self-identity, one that traps us in many other erroneous identities and mistaken notions about life.

Go back to that state of pure being, where the ‘I am’ is still in its purity before it gets contaminated with ‘this I am’ or ‘that I am.’ Your burden is of false self-identification — abandon them all.

— Nisargadatta Maharaj

Just as spirituality is built-in at our origin, so is the impulse to know it. We obscure this impulse in a myriad of ways, yet it never ceases to make itself known. It’s the impulse to know our true selves.

In this quest (it’s a quest whether one thinks they are actively engaged in it or not) healing and  meditation are trusty companions, guides and deep inner resources. Without them we can’t see past our body and ego, and when the body or ego is in trouble we can’t get ourselves out of it.

In meditation, we train the mind to wake up. First we train it to focus on what is happening in the moment, underneath our habitual self-absorption. — Sakyong Mipham

Unless our mind and heart wake up, we’re stuck in a dualistic mode which separates our experiences and the world into me/other, either/or, good/bad, and so on. This creates a fragmented and separate life experience which keeps us small and disconnected.

You want to be happy, healthy, safe and loved. The only real way that can happen is if you get to know your true self. You can still have a career, family, and good retirement, but unless your true nature is known to you, fulfillment remains elusive and distant.

— Pamir Kiciman (Healing Up and Healing Down)

Our true self is knowable. There are 1000s of years of teachings that tell us so. What’s consistent in all of them is meditation and healing.

Meditation is the way of enlightenment. Enlightenment may be big or small, but it always points to our true nature. Enlightenment doesn’t have to be fully ripened to receive its tremendous benefits. Meditation also works out many knots in the psyche. It’s a steady and patient path. Many resist meditation because it’s so unlike all the modes of being that they have bought into, whereas meditation is in fact natural and comfortable.

On the other hand, healing the dramas and pains of our life leads to awakening to our true self which is abiding. Various dramas and pains obscure the true self. These occupy our time and awareness. They also create misidentification. We start to feel we are the current drama or suffering in our life. We treat these as permanent states of being, whereas in fact they are merely occurring. A painful situation or physical condition is something that happens, it’s not where we reside. (Video: Does Your Diagnosis Define You?)

We identify with the body because it’s visible and tangible, and constantly gives us biofeedback. We identify with the mind because our thoughts are relentless. We identify with emotions because they’re a huge part of our subjective experience. And these are the things that preoccupy us most of the time. Sometimes we question our place in the grand scheme of things, our purpose, the meaning of life, and the nature of the universe.

We contemplate these questions in short bursts; they seem impenetrable. So we go about the business of being a man or woman, a dad or mom, a son or daughter, as husband or wife. It gives us an anchor. Yet life in its mystery often unmoors us in unexpected ways.

We encounter spiritual issues every time we wonder where the universe comes from, why we are here, or what happens when we die. We also become spiritual when we become moved by values such as beauty, love, or creativity that seem to reveal a meaning or power beyond our visible world. An idea or practice is “spiritual” when it reveals our personal desire to establish a felt-relationship with the deepest meanings or powers governing life.

— Robert C. Fuller

We also encounter the spiritual when something is broken outside or inside and we need healing. Healing is an inherently spiritual experience even if it’s the healing of body parts. When our attention is drawn by a healing crises, there’s a tremendous opportunity for awakening. Do we have to awaken? No. But usually suffering continues if we don’t.

What are we waking up to? It can be as simple as:

To be spiritual means to be solid, calm, and peaceful, and to be able to look deeply inside and around us.

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Surely everyone can benefit from this. It’s curious why there’s a lot of resistance to our spirituality. All the teachings say that spirituality gives us untold gifts. There’s a very practical side to it too:

Spirituality concerns our own motivation, while secular activity implies working in the world. Because motivation pervades all action, it is important that we have a positive motivation. Whatever we are involved in, whether it’s politics, education, medicine, law, engineering, science, business or industry, the nature of our motivation determines the character of our work.

— Dalai Lama

That’s true intelligence. It’s an intelligent and fulfilling way to live and work. If we don’t live with spirituality enhanced by meditation and healing, we live with greed and aggression. We live with fear and restlessness. Illness has its way with us and our emotional life becomes difficult. We also become less discerning and mental fogginess sets in.

Since systems are only as functional as their parts, society too suffers the ill-effects of individual troubles. (Earth and Humanity’s New Narrative)

Spirituality is not a luxury anymore; we need to be spiritual in order to overcome the difficulties of our time. — Thich Nhat Hanh

What would the world be like if more of its citizens practiced meditation and self-healing, and helped others heal?

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This center is more a space than a place, for it’s nonphysical. It’s located a little way down from the belly button and a little way into the body on a subtle level, as a pulse, a seat, as ground. Its nature is vibratory, its influence pervasive.

The Hara is a seat of power and vitality. Located at the midway point of the body, the Hara is a natural balancer. We really move from here because the legs are nearby and are an extension of the Hara. The mind has a home here too: the Hara is a place where thoughts cease and the mind becomes unified.

Physical life begins in the belly

Before life can begin, there’s a vibratory animating force. That force feeds the fetus through the mother’s diet, and continues to ‘feed’ the birthed life once the umbilical cord is removed.

The Hara is our connection to life: earth, water, fire, air, sunshine, all living things, the entire biosphere, and its cosmic counterpart. We have multiple invisible cords linking us to all that’s alive and the enlivening force itself, and these all culminate in the Hara. The truth that we’re One with all life lives in the Hara.

The mind is on a tangent of its own

The mind often visits places that are fabricated and tense. The rest of us is here. The body is here, the heart is here, our life is here, breathing. The Hara is also here and can bring the mind home. The mind has to come home for us to be successful at anything because home is where our life is taking place.

The Hara centralizes and grounds the mind so its fullness can be unleashed. A settled and available mind leads to other significant resources we have.

The mind has true power but at its surface it’s a runaway train. You may be on this bumpy ride, or you may be absent even. If you’re on it, it’s none too pleasant. If you’re absent, there are much more serious consequences.

The Hara is an organizing principle

It settles the mind and the whole being. It’s also a seat of vitality. Vitality is a quality of health and life that’s often lacking and misunderstood. Vitality is inborn, it’s naturally available as a resource for the body and the whole person. Working with the Hara makes vitality abundantly available, flowing properly and easily replenished. If vitality is chronically low, engaging the Hara will restore it. Vitality is a core component of all-around health; health that works on all levels for the whole person.

Remember that life begins in the belly. That core connection to life continues through the belly as the body develops. The Hara is always connecting to life, the environment and greater cosmic forces. The Hara is also an internal distributor for vitality, feeding body and mind.

Primordial resource

Ultimately the Hara is a primordial resource. Here ‘primordial’ means outside of time/space. Hara is about essence. Essence is the life-giving presence within the body and mind. While it dwells in the body and mind, this presence is both outside time/space and outlasts it. Therefore the Hara provides substantial access to an abiding, eternal and essential part of human nature.

When thoughts cease and the mind becomes unified in the Hara, the eternal opens up; the spiritual becomes available. The spiritual is both innate and personal, and universal. The universal aspect of spirituality is a dimension that co-exists with the physical. The personal aspect of spirituality is the human heart and soul.

The Hara is home base for life in physicality, and home base for all nonphysical but supremely essential ingredients of being human. Having this one-point to centralize life in all its multidimensionality makes life manageable and meaningful. That life can be manageable and meaningful is both great news and a fundamental orientation for a happy, healthy and fulfilling existence.

Original nature

In the Hara everyday human emotions and random or unhelpful thoughts find a resting place, allowing original nature to find expression. Original nature is the timeless essence of each person, the part that isn’t locked into locality or chronology. Being free in this sense reveals the big picture of subtle reality, the reality that holds everyday reality in place. Living from the Hara with full expression of original nature is to be fully present in everyday reality and transcend it too. Being awake here only happens when the already awake source is made conscious. Original nature is already awake. The Hara is the access point.

In Japanese, Hara literally means “belly.” Hara no aru hito means “the man (person) with belly.” A person ‘with belly’ is a person with a ‘center.’ Lacking a center results in loss of balance. Having a center brings tranquility, stability, warmheartedness and a magnanimous, detached response to life, as well as surety and accurate action.

‘Having Hara’ brings a person into wholeness. Established in original nature, honoring the body, mind and heart, one is able to reliably address all spheres of life with equanimity, equilibrium, depth and precision. Hara living matures both character and wisdom with a gentle firmness, and is a lifelong resource for daily existence and beyond.

Related:

The Hara: Your vital center

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Here we’re going to look at hands-on Reiki, especially hands-on-self, from the viewpoint of it being a form (kata in Japanese) of mindful touch, a type of present and awake touch. Some of the insights can be extrapolated to giving Reiki to others, but this is mainly about self-treatments.

The basic premise is quite simple: It’s about not making demands on experiences coming from spiritual and healing practices to be a certain way, to be this or that, to reveal the secrets of the universe, or have major metaphysical ‘fireworks’ occur. It’s about releasing all expectations every single time, and for the duration of self-treatments.

It’s about the very real value of WHAT IS.

Just let go of your demand on this moment. Any time you have a demand on the moment to give you something or remove something, there is suffering. Your demands keep you chained to the dream state of conditioned mind. The problem is that when there is a demand, you completely miss what is now.

— Adyashanti

Touch

Touch is perceived directly. It’s felt. It can be difficult to keep the mind out of the perception of touch since it’s a primary organ of perception, but we have to feel touch without added filters. If we analyze touch cognitively it loses all its power and beauty.

Touch is pre-verbal. Even after we learn speech, touch bypasses words and conceptual thinking.

Touch has a long, deep memory. For example, feeling supported—when learning to walk, a parent held our hand. Later in life, touch can evoke the same sense of support when we’re healing something.

Touch magnifies or creates focus on the area being touched. In other words, it’s a specialized form of awareness.

The hands too are a unique part of the body, and even more so in humans. The hands are what mold life according to what we generate in our heart and our mind, which is hopefully informed by our heart. Hands are the direct expression, or create the expression in form of all that’s formless within us; they carry our highest intentions and aspirations out into the world. We engage life and people with our hands.

Consider the holiness of your hands. They are how you do your work on this earth… — Dianne Sylvan

Often there are expectations as to what Reiki is supposed to “feel” like. Expectations can get in the way of what is actually happening. It may take time for the five physical senses to be refined enough to actually feel subtle energy. Then there are the inner counterparts of the five senses that work at the level of intuitive perception. That may take longer to develop. If there are expectations to begin with, then none of this is important because anything other than the expectations will be disappointing.

Experiences specific to the flow of Reiki into the body and being of a person are going to show up. When they don’t show up, and as a general orientation, the following points are vital to remember. These will enhance your hands-on-self Reiki, as well as your life overall.

WHAT IS

Apart from self-treatment being specifically Reiki touch (and all the qualities that go along with it), it’s also and always mindful touch, or awake touch. Having this orientation to your hands-on-self practice enables you to enter the state of WHAT IS, as opposed to what you want, or what you hope for.

‘What is’ can be many things. For example, it’s noticing the impatience under your hands (or the impatience of your hands), the impatience for some thing to happen, the impatience to feel differently, the impatience to have a mind-blowing experience, the impatience to move to the next hand position.

There’s much value in just being present with each position and if nothing else seems to happen, simply noting, and remembering that it’s the touch of coming home to yourself; a way of reminding yourself to trust, to love, to be there for you, to really have contact with yourself, have a solid connection.

Showing Up

Reiki as present, aware touch is really about showing up for yourself, even when nothing dramatic happens, when nothing particularly profound happens, no sparks fly.

The simple act of being present to yourself, showing up for yourself, listening to yourself and simply observing ‘what is’ in the moments of each hand position is an act of self-compassion, self-renewal, self-validation; it sends messages to parts of you below the conscious level that you are safe, you are loved, everything is fine, to feel secure and solid, and not fear.

Over time you build on this so you can have a much more easeful relationship with yourself, a much more continuous, more loving, firm and consistent relationship with yourself, so that your self-image improves and your insecurities diminish.

Beneath the noise

Reiki as awake touch is about getting underneath the noise. Sometimes all there is to do is observe ‘what is’, be with ‘what is’, go alongside it, just holding it in awareness because you can’t get past the noise to deeper experiences, or insight, or profound realizations that shift you.

Getting underneath the noise doesn’t always work if you’re striving to do that. It can simply be a matter of letting the noise run out and it does. That may not happen over the duration of a single session. It may happen over the duration of several sessions as practice, quiet and silence, and care for yourself, being present with yourself becomes a habit, a lifestyle.

Underneath the noise you have the ability to feel intuitively, and psychically, and with the inner counterparts of the outer senses; to feel spiritually which is different than feeling emotionally. Sometimes you have to wait out the noise, but still be in practice mode, be in application mode, applying Reiki and its various practices to quiet down the body, the mind, the psyche, to quiet your fears and expectations.

The body’s sensations

Just feeling your pulse, sensing your heartbeat, hearing your breath breathe is often enough, it’s all the healing you need. Noticing the various movements as the body functions under your hands, the various sounds, the various pulsations and vibrations are enough to tell you your state of balance, or send a message to the whole of you that all is well, love is available and there’s security. Often that is enough.

‘I love you’

Every hand placement on your own body during Reiki as mindful touch tells your whole body, your whole being, every part of you, every aspect of you that you are loved. It says directly, “I love you.” Everytime the hands are placed on a new part of the body, this message of “I love you” goes through the body to every single aspect of your existence. Within the body too, the message of “I love you” is received by every single cell. Your heart, your feelings and emotions, your mind, your cognition and mental processes, your very own spirit is bathed in this message of  “I love you,” and also that love is available, a universal, divine kind of love. Within that love is care and acknowledgment.

The things the body has to do on a daily basis, all the tasks, all the chores, all the obligations, none of those things can give you this message, can respond in that way. Even meaningful work that inspires and thrills you, a lot of it is mechanical and whatever you have to do each day, the minutiae,  the details, just really don’t care about you. A piece of paperwork, something that needs to be filed, an email that needs to be written, a plan that has to be made has absolutely no investment in your wellbeing. These are inert.

You need time, special time, this mindful, awake, present touch type of time. You need time to actively vibrate, engage, and release the message of love, acknowledgment and care to the totality of your being, because you can’t get it from anywhere else.

Friends and loved ones can source love, but unless and until you’re the source of love for yourself and everyone else and life in general, you’re lost, you’re incomplete, you can’t become whole, and life becomes a drag.

Everything else drags along with it, your energy, your emotions, your mind becomes dull. Your spirit weakens and fades.

You can take a moment now and turn your attention to life. You don’t have to know anything else… Just stop for a moment and turn your attention to life — whether it’s a good life, a bad life, a successful life, or a failure of a life. Life! Just the wonder of that can obliterate all of the dishonoring of it in an instant. In this instant.

— Gangaji

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At the end of the day and upon awakening, however, we are left to our own devices, and we are still the same person before doing any of the above. It’s a good thing that we don’t have to travel to faraway lands and try to find elusive teachers. It’s a good thing that this information is establishing itself in humanity’s psyche. And although still not mainstream, there’s a definite tip in that direction.

On the other hand, without actual personal practice, it’s all a cop out.

None of the information we’re able to take in these days has any impact unless it’s internalized. And internalizing isn’t ‘being more compassionate’ because the Dalai Lama suggests it. In fact it’s near impossible to be any of what’s suggested through various sources unless and until we have an established and regular personal practice at home.

Contemplative practice is not based on belief, but on intrinsic confidence and understanding. — Sakyong Mipham

Understanding comes as a result of spiritual practices, chiefly meditation. We undertake such practices for spiritual development. Unless we develop spiritually within, no outer experience or knowledgebase can have any real impact.

Many people become dependent on the ‘high’ of a seminar or audiovisual program. While attending, the program seems miraculous, life-changing. But when it’s over there’s a slump, a let-down. To counter this, the next seminar seems highly attractive. And the cycle continues.

In this scenario there’s no steadiness, no deepening. No real groundwork is laid inside the person. There’s no foundation, nor scaffolding; no interior chambers to rely on, nor ladders to the next elevation.

Something else happens in true spiritual practice.

… meditation also means to cultivate basic human qualities, such as attention and compassion, and new ways of experiencing the world. What really matters is that a person gradually changes… We develop a propensity toward altruistic behavior and the cluster of qualities that give us the resources to deal with the ups and downs of life.

— Matthieu Ricard

Practice doesn’t develop ephemeral qualities, like only reading or attending a seminar can. Practice develops enduring spiritual qualities that enhance both our nonphysical self, and the life we live in physicality.

Thich Nhat Hanh says, “Whatever you do mindfully is meditation.” This is true. But without actual practice the mind is not mindful, the mind doesn’t present its best version, it isn’t an aid to us but an obstacle. We have to sit silently and engage other spiritual practices too so the mind can exhibit its luminosity.

If we don’t practice, we operate at a nominal human level. If we do practice we operate at a more conscious level. We become fully human. Practice makes us conscious. This isn’t the kind of ‘conscious’ we become upon waking up in the morning. It’s self-awareness. It’s the awakening to the many levels of reality and possibility. It’s becoming conscious to consciousness.

Consciousness as a lattice for reality, stores and gives access to qualities that bring out the highest expression of our humanity.

Human qualities often come in clusters. Altruism, inner peace, strength, freedom, and genuine happiness thrive together like the parts of a nourishing fruit. Likewise, selfishness, animosity, and fear grow together.

— Matthieu Ricard

What we sit with, what we allow, what we let accompany us in life internally and externally grows together. Left on its own the mind falls into all manner of patterns. What we want is neither the high of an intense program or impactful book, nor the low of habitual self-defeating patterns. Instead we need the steady thread of continuity and depth, of regularity and constant return to the storehouse of spiritual qualities and resources.

As we meditate, we simply sit straight and watch the breath. So what does that do? It creates space. In fact, the technique itself is just a trick. The main point is to recognize all these thoughts and distractions that are constantly bombarding us. We still get angry, but we know that we are angry. When we are angry and know it, the anger has a lot of humor. With that kind of anger, we have more control.

— Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche

Practice betters us by revealing all we have inside. We originate as a whole, then through life experiences we fragment and focus on the fragments. We’re not the fragments. We’re the Whole. Practice shows how this is so and how to source our life from wholeness.

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Bamboo is hollow which can represent the hollowness of being a conduit of the divine for healing, compassion, guidance, wisdom and awakening for self and others.

Bamboo is a perennial evergreen; it has leaves every season. Life is full of seasons. Even within a calendar season, our own life may go through more than one ‘season.’ Evergreens shed leaves while producing new ones. Similarly, we need to discard the old and dysfunctional for the fresh and empowering. Like a bamboo’s leaves we benefit from being self-renewing.

The most important symbology of the bamboo is in relation to developing a spiritual backbone. Whether your path is Reiki or another teaching, having a spiritual backbone is essential. Without it the path becomes unsteady. We waver. Both inner and outer temptations are too great and the path itself is already challenging.

Our spiritual backbone isn’t physical, although strengthening the back to sit for longer periods of meditation is important. Instead it’s about our integrity, resoluteness, and spiritual fortitude.

Someone just starting out on their path may not necessarily consider the long term aspect of it. Today we live longer and healthier lives and our spiritual path is meant to accompany us all the way through those years. There are an unknown number of twists and turns, ups and downs. Nothing is guaranteed and the end is obscured. And at the beginning the path is narrow, even hard to discern.

Given this, the only real ally we have is our commitment.

Our lives, like the ocean, constantly change, and we will naturally face great storms and dreary lulls. How, then, to put our minds in a space where practice is always there, whether tumultuous or in the doldrums? It requires a completely radical view of practice: practice is not something we do; it is something we are. We are not separate from our practice, and so no matter what, our practice is present.

— Roshi Pat Enkyo O’Hara

It takes spiritual backbone to commit to practice and lifelong spiritual living. This backbone develops and strengthens with the spiritual practice(s) we engage and also shows up for us when we need it, as long as we’ve put the time in. If you’ve put in solid spiritual time consistently and sincerely, your inner core of integrity and fortitude can take over during dry spells, when feeling bereft or challenged, or even just busy. (‘Busyness’ is a trap, however. It has to be recognized and held back.)

We also need this backbone to stay with our practice during such times. Those are exactly the times we need to practice. Spiritual practice can’t wait for idyllic conditions. It’s now or it’s not.

Bamboo has countless uses, from cooking to medicine to textiles to construction. It’s one of the most versatile plants there is. It’s also flexible in this sense, not only for bending in high wind. Life asks of us to be adaptable and resourceful. We’re endowed with many inner qualities, everything we need to face all situations.

Traditionally bamboo symbolizes longevity. This can also symbolize the longevity of our practice. The straight stem of the bamboo is seen as the (spiritual) path itself, and the segments of the stem are stages along the way.

Stephen R. Covey writes this of bamboo:

After the seed for this amazing tree is planted, you see nothing, absolutely nothing, for four years except for a tiny shoot coming out of a bulb. During those four years, all the growth is underground in a massive, fibrous root structure that spreads deep and wide in the earth. But then in the the fifth year the Chinese bamboo tree grows up to eighty feet!

This is significant in spirituality and healing in so many ways. How often do we become impatient with ourselves and/or the process? How often do we mistrust ourselves and/or the process? How often do we lose faith?

In spirituality or healing (which overlap) it’s also commonplace that there are no observable changes or growth, at least not on the surface. This can be discouraging, but if we abandon teachings then it’s like digging up the bamboo seed in the first four years because not much is visible above ground.

Spiritual teachings usually have several different practices, both formal and the overall practice of embodying our learning and growth as we apply ourselves. Reiki certainly has a variety of methods, beyond its most well-known hands-on application. In fact in Reiki and most other authentic paths, meditation is the foundation.

If your self-discipline or dedication seems to weaken, remember first of all, that this is natural and you don’t need to berate yourself for it. Seek inspiration in the form that works best for you—reading poetry or prose that inspires you, communicating with like-minded friends, finding a community of meditators, maybe a group to practice with… If you haven’t been keeping a meditation journal, start one. And keep in mind that no matter how badly you feel things are going, no matter how long it’s been since you last meditated, you can always begin again. Nothing is lost; nothing is ruined. We have this very moment in front of us. We can start now.

— Sharon Salzberg

That’s sage advice. And it can applied to any of the methods in which we have instruction. Let’s summarize how bamboo can be a helpful analogy for the spiritual life:

• It bends but doesn’t break. Curve balls are easier to handle if our fundamentals are strong, and we can also be fluid.
• It’s strong without being rigid. We have a firm base and core which allows us to be soft and yielding when needed.
• It’s hollow. We empty ourselves of preconceptions and expectations so the divine can fill us.
• It’s evergreen. We’re discarding and renewing at the same time; keeping and improving on the good, releasing the not-so-good.
• Bamboo doesn’t give up underground. It develops and incredible root system. Commitment and inner resolve are deep resources we draw from from start to finish.

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Meditative awareness has three primary qualities. The first is calmness, the second openness, and the third harmony. — Tarthang Tulku

How does calmness show up? Meditation has been found to lower the stress hormone cortisol, lower blood pressure, and heart and respiratory rates. Studies have also found less gray-matter density in the amygdala, a part of the brain that plays an important role in anxiety and stress.

Openness can be interpreted in many ways. One might be “empathy” which is a critical factor of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a set of skills and qualities which is significant all on its own: it increases our ability to manage our life and its pressures, and relate to others in a socially positive way.

Back to empathy itself:

Not too long ago, we thought of the body as a machine and the brain as some sort of computer that ran the show. But much recent research indicates that the brain is essentially a social organ with its cells and pathways wired for empathy, for experiencing the joys and sufferings of others as if they were our own. Our brain, our hormones, and our immune system are an intimately related care-connection system.

— Stephen Post, PhD [follow this link to a complete breakdown of how this actually works]

Let’s look at the meaning of “harmony.” Here’s a dictionary definition: “The quality of forming a pleasing and consistent whole.” That about sums it up. Being stress-free, relating to others in a meaningful way, and making friends with ourselves and life in general through increased emotional intelligence all lead to harmony. Harmony feels good and leads to clear, better decisions and choices.

Harmony is the secret principle that controls life; without it life will disintegrate. Your breath flows and your health is vibrant as long as your bodily organs work in harmony. But if there is discord, disease ensues… This is equally true in any type of organization—any structure that has interacting parts, from nature as a whole to human relationships to corporate businesses… Harmony is the soul of organization…

— Paramahansa Yogananda

Speaking of health, recent research has shown that meditation reduces the experience of pain in the brain. It does this better than morphine! Not only is the intensity of pain reduced, but how the entire experience of pain is felt and perceived.

One major network in the brain has been identified as the default mode network or default network. This is “a network of brain regions that are active when the individual is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest… The default network is an interconnected and anatomically defined brain system that preferentially activates when individuals focus on internal tasks such as daydreaming, envisioning the future, retrieving memories, and gauging others’ perspectives.” (Wikipedia)

The other network is the attentional network. “The attentional network is usually focused on something external, such as a manual task. The default network is involved in internal chatter and daydreaming.”

Usually the two networks are active when one or the other is inactive.

“But meditators are using this default network in unusual and novel ways,” Catherine Kerr, PhD tells WebMD. “People who meditate don’t get lost in mindless negative chatter. Meditation protects you from repetitive negative thinking, which puts you at risk for depression.”

An encouraging finding in many of these studies is that the measureable benefits of meditation are available to use with relatively short training, and positive effects remain well after each meditation period. In fact, certain ways of being and thinking can become lifelong. Meditators “may have formed a new default mode: one that is more present-centered (and less “me”-centered), no matter what they are doing.”

We sometimes regard meditation as an activity of pacifying or calming the mind, but it is also a way to gather and direct it. We gather the energy from hearing, seeing, feeling, and so forth, and place it very steadily on one object…

— Sakyong Mipham

Meditation increases concentration. It leads to better decision-making by removing emotions that may cloud clarity. Self-awareness is boosted because meditation works in the area of the brain associated with it. Several studies have shown that there’s a greater activation in the left prefrontal cortex as a result of meditation. This area is linked to positive emotions and greater responsiveness to negative events. Other research indicates that meditation may help with insomnia.

Why isn’t the whole world meditating?!

In this culture, if we sit and do nothing, people think we’re strange. In places like Tibet, where there is a tradition of meditation, sitting still is considered to be courageous. People appreciate that when someone meditates, they are working with their own mind, which is challenging. All of the pain and pleasure that we experience stems fundamentally from the mind.

— Sakyong Mipham

Even so, companies such as General Mills, Genentech, Google, and Prentice Hall are using meditation in the workplace. While the reasons for doing so may be more about their bottom-line (participants have reported greater satisfaction, productivity, communication, and clarity), such use mainstreams this ancient practice which is obviously so very beneficial.

At the same time, it’s very important to remember the real purpose of meditation:

Meditation is a precise technique for resting the mind and attaining a state of consciousness that is totally different from the normal waking state. It is the means for fathoming all the levels of ourselves and finally experiencing the center of consciousness within. Meditation is not a part of any religion; it is a science, which means that the process of meditation follows a particular order, has definite principles, and produces results that can be verified….

The goal of meditation is to go beyond the mind and experience our essential nature—which is described as peace, happiness, and bliss…

Meditation is a practical means for calming yourself, for letting go of your biases and seeing what is, openly and clearly. It is a way of training the mind so that you are not distracted and caught up in its endless churning.

— Swami Rama

Related:

The Ins and Outs of Meditation

Meditation Reveals…

Put on the Brakes with Meditation

The Life of Meditation

Why Do Humans Meditate?

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The light is always warm. It’s never cold or distant. It invites us into positive experiences. There isn’t an inner light that is negative. Light glows and is always pure. There isn’t a murky light in healing or meditation. It radiates and permeates all the spaces of the body and our being. When we make ourselves available to self-existing light, it’s freeing and we feel alive. The light is life! Another reason it’s freeing is that light is always open. We may contract to the light for various reasons, but there’s no contraction in the light itself. It’s expansive and infinite. The light goes on and on. In its expanse there’s much peace and we feel greatly comforted. And light heals. There’s no doubt that light heals. It’s light that heals. The light is life force and love. We can also wear it like a protective garment, and carry it like a protective shield.

As part of the Reiki Training I provide, I offer a lot of mentoring and support. One format this takes place is a practitioner-only meeting every month, a dojo meeting. And often in these meetings we crowdsource wisdom by sharing and listening.

Last week I asked participants how they were going to make the light more visible in 2012. This is what emerged!

• Encourage others: This is in regards to all the people around us. Encouraging people is a natural outgrowth of living a life of spiritual healing. When we ourselves become empowered, healed and benefit in all the ways spiritual practice adds to our life, we’re naturally motivated to lift others and have the resources to do so.
• Open minds: Healing transformation and spiritual growth need a certain willingness and ability to entertain possibilities. Without open-mindedness we don’t leave outdated beliefs and patterns behind. Helping others open their minds to greater realities is a way of sharing the light.
• “Taking care of your own house”: It all starts with ourselves. We have to engage the light first within our being and establish it in our heart and mind, and in our life. Otherwise it isn’t authentic, and we aren’t able to really bring the light into all the spaces the world needs it.
• Being present/mindful: This may seem obvious, but putting it into place and remembering it every moment is quite an undertaking. And it’s a prime way of sharing light. In presence and mindfulness we can drop expectations and judgments, and be with others and life in a natural, open way.
• Just being: This is a state of simply being the light we are. Often we are on the way to becoming this or that. We have to-do lists, goals and ambitions. Those have their place. But constantly being on that treadmill is exhausting!
  
• Smiling: The light spreads so wonderfully when we smile genuinely. It lights up others’ faces and lightens their hearts.
• Selflessness: When we receive so many blessings because of our dedication to our path, it becomes harder to hold on to them selfishly. There’s a natural abundance in blessings and it wants to be part of a domino effect of giving.
• Next generation: These are our kids, and all younger folk. They carry the light of the future as it is. As conscious and compassionate adults, we have a significant role to play in modeling how best the light can be harnessed and embodied.
• Service: This is outreach. Being full, we give. The light passing through us without resistance is limitless and more than enough for anyone who needs it.
• Listening: This is an echo of being present. Both the world and the earth, as well as other people and species need us to hear them! We’re wrapped up in our own busyness and distractions, but with spiritual practice we’re able to lower the noise and focus on the signal. If we listen without filters, the light flows unhindered.

Reiki is light. Life force is light. Ki is light. Light is consciousness. I’m a fortunate teacher to have people come to me to learn Reiki who can articulate and express so many facets of the light in a single meeting, spontaneously. I didn’t ask them to prepare these responses beforehand.

Light that is knowingly radiated into the world has a different vibration from light that is unknowingly brought into life. Light that is knowingly directed carries consciousness. It vibrates at a higher frequency and can directly interact with the consciousness of those whom it affects.

— Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee

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Units of divine light, finer than electrons and other subatomic particles, are the bricks of which matter is composed. All things seen on the screen of the universe are differentiated currents of cosmic light…

— Paramahansa Yogananda

In the physical world objects are illuminated by outer light, not having a light source of their own. Objects can only be seen by the light which reflects off of them. It’s the same with colors. We see the color of a red apple because it absorbs light except for the frequency equivalent to red, which is reflected back to our eyes.

On the other hand, human beings have an inner light. Although housed in a physical form, the human soul provides a source of light from within. Without the soul we’d be hollow, rudderless. Our eyes would be dull; no evidence of light would exist in us.

Other living things can be said to be structured the same way, or at least interact with available external light such as the case with plants and photosynthesis.

“Nature emits a light, and by its radiance she can be known. But in man there is still another light apart from that which is innate in nature. It is the light through which man experiences, learns, and fathoms the supernatural.

Those who seek in the light of nature speak from the knowledge of nature; but those who seek in the light of man speak from the knowledge of super-nature.” — Paracelsus

The sun is the greatest provider of light and heat to the world, and artificial light has made it possible for life to go on even at night. Humans absorb and use different components of sunlight through the eyes and skin. The production of vitamin D is one example. Another is how light travels into the eye where retina sends nerve signals to the visual cortex in the brain. From there light also travels to the limbic system, which has a role in emotion, learning, memory, and sexuality. The hypothalamus is also stimulated by light, and is linked to both the autonomic nervous system and the pituitary gland.

Color and light have also been used in healing since ancient times:

The priests of ancient Egypt, Babylonia, and China used color or colored light in many of their healing practices. Sunlight therapy was a common medical practice in historic Greek, Chinese and Roman times… — Richard Gerber, MD

Matter can exist in different states such as solid, liquid, and gas. In actuality solids, liquids and gases are different vibrations of the One Light. This primordial light is sound, light, heat emotion, thought, matter and all other things and processes that exist in the universe.

The omnipresent light of Spirit evolves all creatures and forms and forces in the universe, and sustains them by the continuous manifestation of that light. — Yogananda

Then there is the light of awareness. Spiritual light is the fundamental light of consciousness and awareness.

In the heart of every person is a spark of light, the secret of divine presence. This is the seed of our consciousness. Without this light there would be no consciousness. — Llewellyn Vaughn-Lee

The true nature of the human being is light. It’s an inborn light. Being self-reflective, it can show the way. It leads to understanding and wisdom. It ignites the mind and the heart. It’s the light that enables us to evolve. Within it is everything we need to create, improve and prosper.

The light is there in everyone. Some recognize and know it more clearly and powerfully. Those with a greater light quotient can utilize it to help others and the world. Each person has the capacity to increase their light, whether it’s by facilitation from another or direct awakening. Awakening is the dawning of light in the darkness of ignorance. This ignorance isn’t related to education, but the knowing of the true self, and the nature of reality.

We all know intuitively that light is a positive force, an on an empirical level we can see how important light is in nature and our surroundings. Light makes crops and vegetation of the earth grow. We can observe houseplants follow the light, turning their leaves toward its nourishment…

Spiritually light is central to many traditions, celebrated at festivals and other commemorations with candles, decorative lamps, or sacred fires. Light is associated with divinity in several faiths…

Despite our attempts to describe it, absolute light transcends the limitations of space, time, measurement, or concepts. It is inseparable from the enlightened mind and total openness.

— Tulku Thondup

When life is easy, let’s shine the light. When life is hard, let’s shine the light. Whether it’s meditation or laundry, the light is there. Let’s hold space for it every moment.

Holding the light is a singular act of power.

The light is on every moment, switchless, wireless. Awareness ignites this truth, so every activity is graced by it. We’re illuminated from the inside. The source of all light is subtle. Even so, it’s observable and we can wield it. We can use it for good.

In 2012 how are you going to make the light visible and where will you direct it, in what will you invest it?

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How Meditation Might Help You Control Your Weight

The Neurobiology of Bliss—Sacred and Profane

Meditation May Prevent Psychiatric Disorders, Study Suggests

Selfless Gratitude

8 Astonishing Benefits of Walking

5 Ways To Enhance Your Emotional Intelligence

Psychology and Spirituality: One Path or Two?

And in this Season, whatever Holiday (Holy Day) you celebrate may it warm your heart and spread happiness to you and your loved ones. May you also have the healthiest and most prosperous New Year!

With the opening of the New Year, all the closed portals of limitations will be thrown open and I shall move through them to vaster fields, where my worthwhile dreams of life will be fulfilled.

— Paramahansa Yogananda

Pamir Kiciman

"Intuition comes from within; thought, from without." — Yogananda

Humans today have money worries. Money is the primary way our society is setup to ‘secure’ survival. Humans today are afraid of not being loved; of not being successful; of not looking a certain way. We’re not facing wild animals anymore, instead they’re inside! And the triggers for negativity are still there, albeit they’re sanitized, complicated and hidden under layers.

The result is what scientists call a “negativity bias” in the brain. It’s like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones. This is a great strategy for passing on gene copies – which is the engine of biological evolution – but a lousy one for quality of life. The brain is tilted toward survival, but tilted against happiness. — Rick Hanson

You may wonder what chance there is to be positive if the brain is wired this way. It gets worse:

…the more we practice reactivity to our fears (e.g. from small fears to PTSD), the stronger the neural connections in our brains become that make us more likely to be automatically reactive to our fears. Or, the more often we practice automatic negative thinking, the stronger the neural connections become that lead to more automatic reactivity toward automatic negative thinking. — Elisha Goldstein

The good news is that the same is true for positive thinking. Neuroplasticity works both ways. The brain is malleable and it can trend positive or negative.

 …it is the simultaneity of firing (within a few thousandths of a second) of neurons that are connected with each other that leads to strengthening existing synapses – which are the junctions between neurons – and to building new ones.

For example, if you routinely dwell on your resentments and regrets, the neurons involved in that particular mental activity will fire busily together, and automatically start wiring together as well. Which will add one more bit of neural structure to feeling discontented, mistreated, angry, or sorrowful. On the other hand, if you regularly focus on the good facts around you and inside you – like your own good qualities, such as patience, determination, or kindness – then the neurons involved will wire together, stitching more resilience, hopefulness, confidence, and happiness into the fabric of your brain and your self. — Rick Hanson

All well and good. We can mold our brain. Much admired, researched and fawned upon, the brain is near deity status. However, the brain is still a material object, an organ. There are two other levels to our existence than the physical. These are mind and spirit.

Mind isn’t physical matter, but it is subtle matter; it’s ethereal and luminous. The mind isn’t limited to the confines of the brain. Every cell of the body has mind in it. It also goes beyond the body in the exchange of ideas and how thoughts live in our creations and relationships. The mind is mobile in its nature and influence. It’s local with the body and personal experiences, but it’s also nonlocal in its reach, what it influences, and what can influence it.

Since the mind is not the brain alone, it can be used to train the brain, and also to make choices moment to moment. The mind is able to observe our autopilot reactions and impulses. Observation is the first step to modification and change. The mind can help us to stop being victims of past patterns that have been wired in the brain by life experiences, heredity, and by the way we ‘view’ these experiences, in other words our attitude toward them.

It’s best if the mind itself is informed by something other than itself.

Generally, we think that the mind dwells in either the head or the heart. The head us the center for the outer mind that works through the senses. The heart is the center of the inner mind or feeling nature that transcends the senses. The brain is no more than a screen on which the energies of consciousness from the get reflected… This is not the physical heart but the core of knowing deep inside ourselves. We should not confuse this center with a physical location. It pervades all our mental activity. — David Frawley

The brain becomes what is fed to it, positive or negative. The mind can oversee that what the brain engages is healthy and productive, if awareness is cultivated. The question remains, how accurately is the mind perceiving. Ordinary mind processes input from the senses. The senses are prone to dullness, error, bad habits, and a host of other filters that can be delusive.

The senses and the mind are the outer doors through which knowledge percolates into the consciousness. Human knowledge filters in through the senses and is interpreted by the mind. If the senses err in perception, the conclusion drawn by the understanding of that data is also incorrect. — Paramahansa Yogananda

The next time you’re overcome with negative thoughts and feelings about yourself, your life, your circumstances, realize that these perceptions may not be true at all. Even if there are some real issues to deal with, negativity certainly won’t find you solutions. Most often, even if your perceptions have a tinge of truth, negativity takes on a life of its own and colors events darker than they actually are.

This is where intuition comes in. Intuition perceives truth directly. Everyone has native intuition. A lot of it is schooled out of us, but doesn’t disappear and so it can be cultivated, to be established again. Intuition is read in the heart. It’s independent of the brain, senses, or mind.

Instead of paying attention to the thoughts that the brain produces, or the habituated thoughts of the mind, get a better handle on your situation by first perceiving from a cleaner awareness. An awareness cultivated by mindfulness. At least use some of the mind’s higher functioning. There’s strength there and clarity.

In time you can bypass the past, any habits that don’t serve, the brain itself and even the mind by being informed at a soul level, working with intuition, honing and trusting it. Negative patterns may still arise of their own accord, however, you’ll be equipped to dismiss them, because you know the truth of yourself.

The cultivation of intuitive calmness requires unfoldment of the inner life. When developed sufficiently, intuition brings immediate comprehension of truth. You can have this marvelous realization. Meditation is the way. — Paramahansa Yogananda

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— Otagaki Rengetsu (1791-1895)

I came across this poem and instantly recognized myself in it. When a poem can do that, it’s a very significant moment. So I went searching, especially because Reiki has made me fond of all things Japanese. I found gems like this one:

In the morning breeze
a riverbank willow
scatters its leaves
into the flowing waters—
so autumn begins…

According to information available online:

“Otagaki Rengetsu, best known as a famous Japanese poet, was also a calligrapher, potter, and painter. She was born in 1791 into a samurai family with the surname Todo, but was soon adopted by the Otagaki family and given the name Nobu. Having lost her mother and brother at a young age, she served as lady-in-waiting at Kameoka Castle (in present-day Kyoto Prefecture) from the age of 7, until she returned home at the age of 16 to marry. In 1823, after the death of her husband and three young children, she became a Buddhist nun, adopting the name Rengetsu, which means “Lotus Moon.”

Rengetsu moved to Chion-In temple in Kyoto to be with her father, a Buddhist priest. She remained there for ten years until her father’s death, at which time she moved to the countryside. To earn a living Rengetsu wrote Japanese poetry and also produced clay teapots which she often decorated with carved inscriptions or calligraphy of her poems.”

For example the above piece of her teaware has this poem of hers inscribed on it:

Coming and going
I feel neither beginning nor end…
what a strange thing
this heart of mine!

She is best known for her waka poetry. According to Wikipedia:

Waka (和歌, literally “Japanese poem”) or Yamato uta is a genre of classical Japanese verse and one of the major genres of Japanese literature.The term was coined during the Heian period, and was used to distinguish Japanese-language poetry from kanshi(poetry written in Chinese by Japanese poets), and later from renga.

The term waka originally encompassed a number of differing forms, principally tanka (短歌, “short poem”) and chōka (長歌, “long poem”), but also including bussokusekika, sedōka (旋頭歌, “memorized [head repeated] poem”) and katauta (片歌, “poem fragment”). These last three forms, however, fell into disuse at the beginning of the Heian period, and chōka vanished soon afterwards. Thus, the term waka came in time to refer only to tanka.

Japanese poet and critic Masaoka Shiki created the term tanka in the early twentieth century for his statement that waka should be renewed and modernized. Until then, poems of this nature had been referred to as waka or simply uta (“song, poem”). Haiku is also a term of his invention, used for his revision of standalone hokku, with the same idea.

Traditionally waka in general has had no concept of rhyme (indeed, certain arrangements of rhymes, even accidental, were considered dire faults in a poem), or even of line. Instead of lines, waka has the unit (連) and the phrase (句). (Units or phrases are often turned into lines when poetry is translated or transliterated into Western languages, however.)

Here’s an example of her calligraphy, inscribed with one of her poems:

In the paddies between the hills on a misty path a human from takes shape: a scarecrow.

Otagaki Rengetsu was prolific; her poems here are a mere handful. When you read her bio, it’s obvious that she actually lived real human challenges. Her poetry and art doesn’t come from some idyllic existence.

That’s why I bow to her spirit, for it remained light as a feather, and gracefully inspirational. I’ve fallen head over heels in love with her creative spirit and humility.

I leave you with two more for her poems.

Waiting
beneath a maple
its colors still unturned—
so happy this morning
with the first rain of winter!

And finally for a spiritual healing focus:

Won’t you open
the lotus inside
and turn
those demons
from your heart?

— Otagaki Rengetsu

Gassho!

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First a few words about journaling. While this is a popular practice, many are intimidated by writing, or journal inconsistently and feel guilty about it.

You don’t have to be Charles Dickens to benefit from journaling! There are no deadlines, you don’t have to be a great writer, or even know grammar particularly well. There are no rejection letters, you don’t need an agent or have to appear on Oprah. The New York Times isn’t going to pan your work, and you don’t have to hole up in the Florida Keys, drunk. So, chill out.

Journaling is about allowing your thoughts, feelings and intuitions to surface on the page. It helps to understand your life, process various things, heal and get clear. It’s also a great way to record your journey and growth. Over a lifetime, significant themes emerge and journaling is a powerful way to use hindsight for future betterment. Your journal is a mirror and container.

It’s also a place where imperfection is allowed. Each entry doesn’t need to be complete everytime you journal. You can revisit and continue exploring. Associative threads emerge, and it’s safe to express yourself in this way.

Chakra prompts

There are many great resources available on the chakras and some basic familiarity will be needed to journal through each one.

Simply put, chakras are nonphysical wheels of energy corresponding to specific locations along the spine and head, which relate to your human experience on earth, and also your spiritual experience as a soul.

Following are one journal prompt for each chakra. Many more and different prompts could be used, and you’ll probably come up with your own. This is to get you started. When you practice personal writing, don’t censor and let it flow.

• Chakra 1, tip of spine, element Earth: Am I rooted and grounded in the earth with a solid foundation to survive and build my home here?
• Chakra 2, genital region, element Water: Do I move well though my emotions and desires, feel pleasure and express my sexuality/sensuality, relating to people, and flowing with my creativity?
• Chakra 3, solar plexus, element Fire: Am I in control of my personal power and will, both retaining authority and avoiding aggression so I can be intact in body and mind?
• Chakra 4, center of chest (heart), element Air: Is there balance between my giving and receiving in the fullness of love and compassion and the openness of my heart space, both for myself and for others?
• Chakra 5, the throat, element Ether: Do I communicate my truth and express my creativity?
• Chakra 6, pituitary gland/point between eyebrows, element Light: Do I honor my intuition?
• Chakra 7, cerebral cortex/crown, element Consciousness: Do I know what and who I am?

As you may notice, the prompts for chakras 5, 6 and 7 are brief but profound. The contemplation for these centers is multifaceted and for 6 and 7, essentially spiritual (and also for the heart chakra). For instance, intuition helps you to know both at a mundane and cosmic level. As for the thousand-petaled lotus that is the crown chakra, this is the transcendent knowing of Self.

When you are going to journal, make sure you can be alone, in a quiet place. This kind of writing is more of a meditation. It comes from inside, not so much from your logical mind. It’s not a diary of the day’s events, but a way to have a deep conversation with all aspects of your being. It’s transformational writing.

If you have any questions or need further guidance please leave a comment. There’s a lot of subtlety involved and I’d be happy to mentor, and provide more information by replying to your comments.

Okay, now go get your journal!

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This truth is often missed. Perhaps your inner work’s momentum hasn’t quite gathered yet. Perhaps your struggles are still in your face. Delight in the fact that still elusive outward changes are a reflection of how you’re changing inside; they just haven’t quite taken form yet. And things may not be all that pretty inside. Instead of being neurotic that change hasn’t manifested, realize it’s in process; you’re working it.

The truth of the matter is that empowerment is ongoing. You have to climb a while before reaching a plateau. And then the path still continues.

Empowerment is personal power. It’s used for routine tasks such as getting up, making breakfast and going to work. It’s also used as self-determination and integrity. Personal power properly claimed and wielded, can bring you emotional freedom and peace of mind. There has to be a modicum of personal power to just survive, let alone thrive. Depending on your ‘story,’ your bio, you may have been raised in an environment that provided this. Then it can be built on. If not, and even if so most of us still need to work on it, personal power is personal: You must dust it off and let it shine. No one else can really do it for you.

Everything that we’ve shoved away, we shoved away with a curse; most of it came from the outside. With a curse comes a hiding, comes a shame. To dare to be seen and to speak from what’s authentic undoes a curse. It’s time to stop hiding behind some fiction of “bad me” and burn through to shining.  — Jeannie Zandi

With personal power comes tremendous trust and energy. You’re able to trust yourself, and life. It energizes your psyche which fuels your imagination, purpose and passions. It lifts you. Personal power can be a diamond in the rough, however. Its best use isn’t for you to impose your will over your circumstances. This can be destructive, short-lived, and in service of the ego.

Humility does not mean you think less of yourself. It means you think of yourself less. — Ken Blanchard

Once personal power is actuated and exercised regularly in a balanced way, it begins to become empowerment. Empowerment is a settled resource, while personal power can fluctuate. Empowerment is lifelong and more of the spirit. Personal power giving way to empowerment is the transition from ego to soul. The soul is truth. When you know your spiritual truth, all other lies fall off. It’s a knowing that can’t become unknown.

This is the pinnacle of empowerment, but it doesn’t have to be fully reached before being radically effective in your life. You need empowerment in your career, for personal growth, to heal, for spiritual development. If you’ve put in the work to find some psychological wholeness, and also reached into your soul and are on a spiritual path, the practices you’re engaged in, the realizations that come, and the way of being that establishes itself in you are all naturally empowering. Over time it becomes firmer and firmer, more and more knowable and reliable. There’s a gentleness to empowerment, a detachment. Even with annoyances or more substantial issues that may still come up, empowerment once accessed filters into your life, and eases your way.

Truth is empowering. Everytime you turn to truth, it empowers you more. Knowing your true nature, and before that growing in understanding it, being it, experiencing life from its perspective is empowering with each encounter. Each moment of spiritual practice polishes your diamond.

Fear does arise on the way to empowerment. Fear is a many-headed beast. Therefore courage is a must. Ironically, you need courage to be empowered, and empowered to show courage. They are inextricably linked. One feeds the other. Courage is a fire that burns away fear. Empowerment keeps the fire going.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. — Ambrose Redmoon

Power is essential to life. Every living thing needs to be powered somehow. Humans are powered by soul consciousness, light, breath, life force, and food and water. Of these, consciousness is the overseer and director, and life force is the ‘electricity’ and subtle hub making each item work with all the parts of a human.

If consciousness and life force are trapped in past hurts, or projected into future worries they aren’t available now where you need them. Their power is diminished greatly, and you’re left powerless in the present. Loss of power is much more than lack of energy. It can lead to depression, confusion, and low vibration choices which exacerbate your situation.

To reclaim and cycle your power in through your present moments is an act of empowerment. Feeding old ghosts or giving juice to future fear dragons is disempowering. Your power is needed now, here with you.

But the greatest power is always love. Power can be used in the service of love, but not vice versa. — Ram Dass

…

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© Pamir Kiciman 2011

Awareness is a quality which utilizes more sources than the intellect or the brain’s information processing. The thinking mind cognizes and perceives but neither of these add up to awareness. Awareness includes presence; the presence of the one cognizing. It also considers experiences available from other sources. Signal processing isn’t the only experience available to the human organism.

When we look out at the world with the five senses and what the brain processes through them, the world is solid and works in specific ways. When we look out to the world with awareness, its solidity starts to break up. It also becomes apparent that there are other possibilities in the way the world works.

This is true of our inner workings as well. If we only cognize our challenges and dilemmas, many times they seem unsolvable, set, and punishing. If we bring the same into awareness, however, space opens up and new possibilities arise in that space. We also find that we’re far less identified with or even as those ‘personal problems.’

If we imagine that our mind is like the blue sky, and that across it pass thoughts as clouds, we can get a feel for that part of it which is other than our thoughts. The sky is always present; it contains the clouds and yet is not contained by them. So with our awareness. It is present and encompasses all our thoughts, feelings, and sensations; yet it is not the same as them. To recognize and acknowledge this awareness, with its spacious, peaceful quality, is to find a very useful resource within. We see that we need not identify with each thought just because it happens to occur. We can remain quiet and choose which thought we wish to attend to. And we can remain aware behind all these thoughts, in a state that offers an entirely new level of openness and insight. — Ram Dass

The Heart-Mind

The thinking process gets all the fanfare. Schooling produces thinkers. Our mental capacities are touted, researched, edified and respected. Rightly so in many ways; the human mind is a pretty amazing thing. What becomes detrimental is the focus on the mind to the exclusion of other amazing aspects of our being, the chief of which is the heart.

This isn’t the biological heart or the heart of romance. It’s not operating only at the level of emotion. It isn’t entangled in our self-identity as ego. In fact it’s free of us entirely, acting as a backdrop to daily existence, and a container for the human journey.

In Sanskrit this Heart is called hridayam, the locus of consciousness where our true Self lives.

There’s nothing bad about having an ego. Those thoughts and feelings are necessary for a healthy personality. But if you identify so strongly with the ego that you think that’s all there is, that limited view can keep you from your deeper Self. — Ram Dass

As amazing the mind can be, it’s also conditioned, fragmented, distracted, trapped and fearful. It isn’t able to extricate itself from such influences by relying only on its own brilliance. It needs the balance of the Heart, and the awareness that’s available there. It needs to become heart-mind.

… in all Asian languages — at least I’ve been told this; I don’t know all Asian languages — but in all Asian languages the word for “mind” and the word for “heart” are the same word. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

There isn’t a mind without the Heart. Thinking without awareness gets us into trouble. We become narrow and exalt temporary truths. Thought-generated awareness is limited, the input it gets comes from the material world which gives us only a partial view.

The heart-mind is awareness turned inward, awareness of the spiritual universe within, and the quality of that awareness, the feeling that accompanies it, is love. — Ram Dass

Awareness

True awareness doesn’t originate in the mind. Cognition and perception are too narrow to produce awareness. There’s a contemplative quality to awareness and routine thoughts are too fast and disparate to be contemplative. The mind needs the ballast of the Heart. The mind is linear and trapped in time. The Heart is nonlinear and timeless. With heart-mind we can be in time and deal with our daily life, and also renew and recalibrate in the timeless. With heart-mind our sojourn in time is sweetened and enhanced by our diving into a nonlinear, timeless center of wholeness.

Mind by itself also leaves us trapped in ‘local problems.’ These are the stuff of everyday living, all the usual pressures, stresses and dramas. Awareness sources in the nonlocal. It’s ever-present and impersonal. It doesn’t make judgments or evaluations. It simply and directly reveals what is. Although readily available, like the Heart, awareness needs to be cultivated, promoted and made familiar to our consciousness.

So much of what is considered “smart” is brain-based. There’s another, holistic intelligence; that of the Heart. Education, business, social and behavioral sciences all emphasize brain development. Yet we’re inhuman without the Heart. It’s not the heart of cardiology or heartache that trumps the brain, but the Heart of exquisite Being and Presence.

Awareness is available at the Being level of reality. Here there’s Presence. Mind isn’t equated with the brain in its superlative states. Mind breaks the barriers of the brain. Yet even then, if it doesn’t hold hands with the Heart, it can’t know itself, it can’t participate in Presence.

Presence is ineffable, but it can be known and felt once we make ourselves available to it.

This presence whether experienced as Allah, as Atman, as Sunyata, or as the Buddha-nature or as Bodhisattva; whether as Tao or as the One or as the Divine Feminine, is the atmosphere in which humans breathe deepest and without which they eventually suffocate. — Thomas Berry

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Love in a most wonderful way transforms and spiritualizes wherever it appears.

— Paramahansa Yogananda

© Pamir Kiciman 2010 Text, Photo and Digital Art

Buddhism is a one of the world’s wisdom traditions. To illustrate just exactly how a wisdom tradition works and why it’s so precious and significant, let’s look at one buddha and the inner workings of related teachings. The Japanese names are going to be used since this is a Reiki blog, but Sanskrit versions will also be given.

DAINICHI NYORAI  大 日 如 来
Literally, “Great Sun” (Mahavairocana or Vairochana in Sanskrit)

This is an image of Dainichi Nyorai (Vairocana) in the Kongo-kai (Diamond World) who makes a Chike-in sign (entering the world of Buddha's wisdom) in front of its chest. Dainichi Nyorai is the central deity of the Kongo-kai Mandala that represents the structure of the spiritual world in esoteric Buddhism.

Variously known as the Great Buddha of Universal Illumination, Cosmic Buddha, All-Encompassing Buddha, Life Force of the Universe, Spreader of Light in All Directions, or Great Shining One, Dainichi is a ‘celestial’ buddha. Buddhism teaches that there are three bodies (kayas) or manifestations of enlightenment. Of these dharmakaya is that aspect of the Buddha which is unchanging and eternal, referring to the essence of awakened being, absolute buddha nature. It’s the basis of all existence, including human. It’s also the spiritual body or “truth body” of all buddhas. This is Dainichi Nyorai, and where the ‘cosmic’ or ‘celestial’ reference comes in.

Dainichi is said to be omnipresent and all things, like the air we breathe, with all other buddhas and deities being emanations of Dainichi.

The first virtue of Dainichi Nyorai is the universal radiance that dispels darkness, with the ability to destroy suffering and despair. The second virtue is that this radiance has neither beginning nor end, and that the light of wisdom is like the sun, which always shines regardless of whether it’s day or night. The third virtue is an ability to enlighten living beings, and that great compassion is the parent of life which continues to nourish all living beings at all times.

Dainichi Buddha corresponds to the historical Buddha’s first turning of the Wheel of the Law in Deer Park in Sarnath, India. This is where the historical Buddha gave his first sermon after attaining enlightenment. The Turning of the Wheel is a metaphor for the teaching of the path to enlightenment.

One of the ways that wisdom comes into play is in understanding the mind of enlightenment and its various facets. The “five buddha families,” is an ancient Buddhist system of doing just that. The buddha families are traditionally displayed as a mandala. Each buddha in the mandala embodies one of the five different aspects of enlightenment. These manifest themselves as enlightened qualities as well as neurotic states of mind. The buddha families clearly present a complete picture of both the world of enlightened mind and the world of ego.

Traditionally, at the center of the mandala is Vairochana [Dainichi Nyorai], lord of the buddha family, who is white and represents the wisdom of all-encompassing space and its opposite, the fundamental ignorance that is the source of cyclic existence (samsara). The dullness of ignorance is transmuted to a vast space that accommodates anything and everything.

In the east of the mandala is Akshobya [Ashuku Nyorai], lord of the vajra family, who is blue and represents mirror-like wisdom and its opposite, aggression. The overwhelming directness of aggression is transmuted into the quality of a mirror, clearly reflecting all phenomena. Vajra is associated with the element water, with winter, and with sharpness and textures.

In the south of the mandala is Ratnasambhava [Hōshō Nyorai], buddha of the ratna family, who is yellow and represents the wisdom of equanimity and its opposite, pride. The fulsomeness of pride is transmuted into the quality of including all phenomena as elements in the rich display. Ratna is associated with the element earth, with autumn, with fertility and depth.

In the west of the mandala is Amitabha [Amida Nyorai], buddha of the padma family, who is red and represents discriminating-awareness wisdom and its opposite, passion or grasping. The intense desire of passion is transmuted into an attention to the fine qualities of each and every detail. Padma is associated with the element fire, with spring, with façade and color.

In the north of the mandala is Amogasiddhi [Fukūjōju Nyorai], buddha of the karma family, who is green and represents all-accomplishing wisdom and its opposite, jealousy or paranoia. The arrow-like pointedness of jealousy is transmuted into efficient action. Karma is associated with the element wind, with summer, with growing and completing.

— Irini Rockwell (brackets are mine)

Correspondingly, Dainichi’s characteristic hand gesture in Japan (although not always) is the Mudra of Six Elements (seen in the picture above as Chiken-in — also called the Knowledge Fist mudra.) In this mudra (hand gesture), the index finger of the left hand is clasped by the five fingers of the right. It symbolizes the unity of the five elements (Goshiki) — earth, water, fire, air/wind, and space/void — with spiritual consciousness.

Wisdom Fist mudra or simply Wisdom mudra speaks to the truth that only by adding the sixth element — mind, perception, or spiritual consciousness — do the five elements become animate. This equates to the Diamond World (noted in the picture above, it’s a metaphysical realm inhabited by the five wisdom buddhas, also detailed above). Put another way, there’s “unity” only when the sixth element is added. Without the sixth element, ordinary eyes see only differentiated or separate forms or appearances.

In summary, Dainichi Nyorai is known as the Supreme Buddha of the Cosmos in Esoteric Buddhist thought, being the source from whom all other deities and everything in the universe emanates, as light does from the sun. The hands form the mudra of perfect knowledge, which holds the power to restrain passions that hinder enlightenment. With the left index finger surrounded and protected by the fingers of the right, this gesture expresses the all-encompassing union of the spiritual and material realms of existence, and how the spiritual gives life to and sustains the material.

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