MTX 3: Investigate Who You Were Before You Were Born

Now for the hard part.

It may seem easy enough and even entertaining to regard all things as dreams once you get into it. But who's doing the regarding? And how real is that?

For most of us regarding "all things" as a dream doesn't manage to include the dreamer because surely something must be real. And if all else is but the stuff of dreams, that something must be ME. The truth is, when we start to pull the thread on the fabrication of I, the solidity of who we think of ourselves as starts to unravel. But don't my word on it. This is mind training, so hearsay doesn't count.  Here's the practice:

Turn the eye of attention and investigation on the compound equation known as "I."
Read the instructions and don't try to spend a long time with it. Just get to the essence. It goes something like this.

Using simple awareness:

Sit quietly and mind your business—that is your own mind.
Eventually there's a thought. (Who had the thought?)
Observe that there is a thinker and a thought. (What observed the thinker?)
Then observe what it is that knows there is a thinker and a thought. (When did "that" get there?)
Then observe what is is that can wonder when. (Where does "that" live?)
(You get my drift.)
Then continue this investigation PERSISTENTLY to see if you can find a beginning. (How did this all come to be?)
When/if you find this beginning (or someplace to take a breather from chasing the thread) take a few minutes to rest there.

For bonus points: looking back, inquire from this place how much the first thought you began with actually matters.

(And why is it that we invest so much in I?)

With even the most basic inquiry, all the self-celebration, congratulation and fixation on I doesn't seem to measure up.

This isn't a cynical view to suggest you don't matter, but it does point to a conspiracy to blindly believe in something that we don't take the time to understand the nature of. If you're going to let I determine what's real and what's not, shouldn't you know where I is coming from? Shouldn't you at least be able to point it?

On the other hand, if it turns out that "I" isn't so fixed or easily identifiable, maybe you don't have to be as firmly attached to everything that springs forth from it.

Where would that leave everything your "I" has conjured up so far?

At the same time, there's an awareness deep behind the obsession with I, ME, MINE that remains untouched by anything so-called I creates.  We usually choose—without question— I as the center attraction: the superstar of all our movies, song and dance. But with this practice, we can see that we have a choice.

What if we began to choose awareness instead?

here's to change,
angel

changeangel: all things change.(sm)


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MTX 2: Regard All Things As A Dream

Here's where the Practice begins.

The reason we need training is because our minds are mis-aligned, like a neck that has spent too much time craning forward to read email after email. Our shoulders then follow, pulling our backs along for the ride, twisting our muscles and contorting our spines. In no time at all, our lives are dominated by the pain and suffering of our fundamentally flawed way of looking at things.

The fix is to just recognize the stuff of mind for what it is: material from our perceptions, processed through our filters, framed by our experiences, colored by emotions and periodocially amped up and tricked out by the chemical baths given of an old, hyper-vigilant brain.

But like dreams, these distortions appear real and we behave as if the fabrication were absolute. Fear, Anxiety and Lust are repeat characters in the dream-state we generate, and when they beg us to dance, we willingly take to the floor only to find ourselves swirling, spiraling and dizzied by it all. With no apparent end to the song, we're hopelessly caught in the drama that unfolds before us.

We suffer from an incessant forgetfulness that nothing has inherent identity. That is to say "permanent and inseparable." Inseparable from what? From everything else. As a result, we treat the stuff of our dramas as if they were real. But without our participation, our dramas can take their rightful place as mere dreams.

Since we all love a good drama, it's fine to observe, but when we start thrashing, sweating and screaming, its time to wake up and get some perspective. Mind training is our inner-chiropractor giving us an attitudinal adjustment so we can see life right-side up with a view that is open and clear.

For the next week, try this on:
Regard all things as if they were a dream:
All things.
As if.
Dream.
When you find yourself IN the dream, simply repeat the practice: regard all things as if a dream.

From there, you get to choose how and how much you want to interact with the stuff of your dreams. But you get to keep in mind what it is: stuff. Just stuff.

Do remember you have a lot of practice treating your drama as if it's real. So you will forget. You will need to start over again. It will suck. And with enough practice, you will change.

That's real.

here's to change,

angel

changeangel: all things change.(sm)
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MTX 1b: First, do the groundwork.

Motivation & Skills

Since this instruction lays the groundwork, it's the longest commentary and offered in two parts. This is part 2.

Doing the groundwork for this training means you'll need to have or develop:

1. Basic Approach (read the previous commentary)
2. Motivation & Skills

Motivation precedes everything. It isn't what you do that defines the quality of your life, it's why...toward what end? The intention you have set for your actions, while not everything, is essential because nothing happens at all without intention. Motivation is like the siamese twin of intention. It determines where your intention is directed and gives meaning to all of choices and actions, making them yours. Accidental compassion isn't compassion at all. There must be clear motivation.

To transform your life, you must be motivated by:

1. appreciation and coming to terms with and the reality that your life is yours and yours alone.
   That each of your choices, actions, consequences, outcomes, experiences and feedback are yours to deal with, be in relationship with and take responsibility for. There's no more time for the blame game and you have to get off the pity line. This doesn't mean you won't acknowledge and address very real impacts of people, events and conditions on your life, it simply means that you meet those impacts as WHAT IS. This is Radical Responsibility: "It's not my fault, but it is my responsibility. Whatever comes, I will meet it as it is, then either initiate a plan to change it…or shut up about it until I'm willing to do so."

2. fierce determination to shift from allowing habit-patterns to drive your basic experience.
   Key to transforming your life is taking up the full space created by embracing Choice as a lifestyle. Gone are the days of "it just happened," "i'm just that way," "I didn't have a choice." There is always choice. And yes, there are consequences, too. We can decide, validly and reasonably, that we do not wish to bear the consequences of a particular choice, but we must recognize, and be accountable for the choices we make. All of them. Every single one without fail. When we feel stuck, we often cannot see the choices available to us. In the course of our training, greater and greater choice will become apparent. In the meantime, you can choose Radical Accountability. "May I exercise the precious gift of choice and the power to change that make me uniquely human. Whether conscious or unconscious, the impacts of my choices are mine to see through to resolution."

    

3. unwavering commitment to help others do so, too.
   Whatever intention we have for transforming our lives—all actions really—if not ultimately rooted in a genuine desire to see the lives of others positively transformed, will be self-serving and have as its result a building up of the kind of ego-centric worldview that is not only false, it is clearly unsustainable for our communities, countries and planet. The goal for our personal transformation—the end game of "towards what end"—must be in service of our interconnectedness. It must affirm life, security, sustainability and self-determination for all. Both the how and the why, being in Radical Relationship means your liberation is bound up in mine. Red, Blue, Black, White, North, South, Left, Right. The Radical Purpose for transforming our lives is expressed by the truth that "none of us are free until we are all free."

To see transformation in your life, you must develop skills and steadily increase your capacity for:

1. steady attention
   So you might be thinking "if I had that I wouldn't be doing this training." A valid concern, and one best met by practicing. If you do not have an existing practice to cultivate stable mind-attention (the ability to place your attention on an object and keep it there), Some folks call it meditation, but mostly it's strength-training for the mind.
   Here's all you really need to get started:

   Remember that consistency counts. So toss the "where am i gonna find 20 (30, 60) minutes question." It's just a distraction. Do this instead:

   "no sit, no brush teeth"
   For 5 minutes EVERY day when you first wake up, get out the bed--but don't brush your teeth. Find a spot. Sit down in an upright yet relaxed position, both feet on the floor and place your attention on your breath. Wherever it is, however it is. If you find folks are offering you breath mints, you're not practicing enough.

   If you already have a practice, increase it by 1 minute per week for the duration of this training. Yes, just one. At the end of the year, you'll have added 50 minutes.

2. attention-awareness of daily behavior
   All that stable attention doesn't matter if it stays on your seat. Bring that increased attention to daily behavior. Dharma folks, yogis and buddhists call this mindfulness. Whatever name you use, choose 1 behavior each day that you bring your full attention to. Notice every action, every movement, every moment in exquisite detail. Attention-awareness or Mindfulness in Brushing your teeth is a nice follow-up to your Steady & Strong Attention Practice.

To recap the Groundwork:

Intentions anchor your actions.

Motivation sets the direction.

Skills carry you forward.

If it isn't already apparent, the Groundwork, sometimes referred to as the Preliminaries, should be thought of as Ground Zero. More like the Instructions that co-exist with every instruction throughout the training, you return to the cultivation of Motivation and Skills. To make sure you're headed in a good direction and have the skills to get there, you'll be reminded to do Groundwork as Homework often.
 
here's to change,
angel
changeangel: all things change.(sm)

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MTX 1: First, do the groundwork.

Basic Approach

Since this lays the groundwork, it's the longest commentary and offered in two parts. This is part I.
If you haven't already read the Intro & Start Here, please do.

Doing the groundwork for this training means you'll need to have or develop:

1. Basic Approach
2. Motivation & Skills

Any plan you have or structure you build needs a solid foundation upon which to rest if you want to have any hope for the plan to succeed or the structure to remain intact and last over time.

In this case, the plan is to get an attitude adjustment. To clean up the way you view life so that the debris of negative and limiting beliefs are no longer obscuring your ability to see life with freshness and clarity in each moment.

Basic Approach: 4 Contemplations or Thoughts That Remind Us To Get Real

1. Life is precious: The mere fact that you were born is cause for celebration and appreciation. All too often we forget that and spend our time lamenting on what's wrong with the life we have. It's like how we take diamond—something that has literally taken billions of years to form under intense pressure and high heat and then rises from the depths of the earth—and focus on it's "flaws". Likewise a pearl, a gorgeous iridescent wonder massaged from irritants in the belly of a creature of the sea. We fuss about how cloudy it is or isn't. Hello? It was forged from a grain of sand. If that's not a miracle, I don't know what is. No matter how cloudy, your life is still a pearl.

Consider: You have the rare opportunity you've been waiting for. Being alive.

2. Life is impermanent: Well, the one we have conscious awareness of in this lifetime is. You may very well be joined with the Divine in the Kingdom of Heaven, have to suffer your trespasses in Hell or just be reborn as a slug, fish or plain ol' you again, depending on your beliefs. But right now, each of us has this life as we know it, and the one thing we are certain beyond belief or doubt, is that it will come to an end. So life is a rare and precious gift, but it does expire. Will you let it go to waste or use it for all it's worth?

Consider: Whatever you need to do, do it now.
 

3. Actions beget reactions:  We all know there are folks out there that do pretty off things and they seem to get away with it. That's because we want "eye for an eye" tangible proof of a feedback loop for every single action taken. This is a limited, egocentric* view that doesn't recognize:

a. Interconnectedness: The Butterfly Effect. I know most of us are still working on believing this, but the reality is that we are all interconnected. As the world becomes smaller, we can see this more readily. Our actions, positive and negative, have an impact on the people and planet we live in relationship to. Most times, it's within our families, in our homes and places of work. But when we collectively behave in inconsiderate ways, it shows up in massive form. If America's pollution opening up a massive hole in Australia's ozone layer doesn't say it for you, we have a really long way to go.

b. intangible feedback: Maybe a bird doesn't poop on our heads when we do funky deeds, but on the inside we feel shitty about how we show up in the world, become increasingly miserable, use aggression to defend ourselves and do more and more shitty things. Talk about vicious cycle. In the end, we get habituated to aggression and the resulting disconnect from what and who we love. Once the pattern gets going, it's hard to figure out how to stop. Self-serving behaviors is about defending all we think we have left: ourselves. Broken and in fear, say hello to the Scrooges, Hitlers and foul Uncle Freds of the world.

How's your impact today? Are you serving connectedness or brokenness?

Consider: Whatever you do, feedback follows.

4. We're Tender and Slow to Get Real: That's a nice way of saying that the Rose Garden of Life comes with thorns, and given our design, we are prone to get pricked.  We can't have the roses without the thorns. We feel pain because to be in relationship with the roses is to meet the thorns. That is life. We suffer because we want the rose garden to exist in some way it does not. We want to hold on to the roses forever and we want to avoid the thorns. The pain part is inevitable. The suffering part is not. We keep approaching life with the same ideas that lead to our own suffering. What attitude do you need to adjust to accept life as it is?

Consider: Freedom doesn't mean Free…of challenge or of pain, and that's good news.

here's to change,
angel
changeangel: all things change.(sm)

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[Glossary of Terms]
Egocentric: a lifeview and approach deeply rooted in fixation on one's own limited perspective, perceptions and feelings. (i.e., me, me, me. I, I, I. It's all about me. Enough about you, what about me?) the exact framework MTX seeks to liberate you from towards a more holistic, integrative framework that includes other people, places and things.