Keep love in your hearts for all beings. Do not carry resentment or regret for lives lived, but seek release and redemption from all that now holds you captive by releasing the self from inner turmoil so that peace may reign, within and without.
Though you live so fully in that world of outer reality, it is the inner journey that must be taken in order to reach a new level of consciousness, both within the self and in relation to the world outside of you. Constant attention to the inner workings of your mind, body, and spirit is necessary in order to achieve calm love in your heart for all beings, including the self.
Facing your inner turmoil will lead to finding love in your heart, first for the self and then for others. Find the reasons for your sorrows and you will find joy. Find the reasons for your pain and you will find release. Find the reasons for the constant worries of the mind and you will find peace of mind.
All in all, it is only in constantly attending to the self as a spiritual being on a journey to wholeness that change will occur. Let the self be taken forward on that journey each day. With patience, learn to acquiesce to the flow of life, for it will take you where you need to go, show you what you must confront, and guide you to resolution.
Trust all that comes your way as guidance and you will have traversed the first hurdle in taking that journey of change. Challenging though your journey may be, keep always in mind that of all life’s journeys it is the one that matters. At your core you already know this.
Acquiesce a little bit more to that truth, trusting that this day and the events that arise from outside of you and the corresponding reaction that arises inside you are crucial partners as you take your journey. Pay attention to all that arises or comes to greet you as being significant and deeply meaningful, today and all days.
Find release in learning what it truly means to carry love in your heart through deep work on the self. It is truly a loving journey worth every second of your life.
Your daily journey is showing you all that you need in order to evolve. Accept what comes and flow with it, in trust that you are indeed well guided and truly loved in return.
Deeply trusting this journey, channeled with love for all, Jan
Dear Jeanne and all of our guides in Infinity: What message of guidance do you offer us today?
Time to look up from your path and take in the wider view...
Stay connected to the bigger picture. Continually pull back out of the debris and details pointing to your inner work and your processes of growth and remind the self that there is a bigger story. You are on a journey, appointed a path of constant transition and transformation. Decide how you wish to traverse your path. It is appropriate to notice all that lies at your feet, but it is equally important to notice the sky above you and the horizon beyond you.
Take time each day to thank the self for taking the journey you are on. If you are lost in feelings so deep that you feel incapable of taking another step, you must quickly look up and regain your larger perspective.
It is only in constantly monitoring all aspects of life that one will gain the necessary tools to take the journey with full attention. Full attention means being aware of life’s journey as deeply meaningful, every part of it. Full attention means being aware that everything you have experienced in life so far and all that is to come is deeply meaningful. Full attention means shifting thoughts often, reminding the self that you are a transformational being on a transformational journey—at all times.
Full attention means accepting where you are right now as deeply meaningful and letting go of old ideas of the self so that you may discover the meaning for this moment in your life as a transformational being. Full attention means being aware that each moment is significant; each thought, feeling, emotion, regret and hope is significant in your transformational process. Full attention means never letting the true self be smothered by circumstances beyond your control. Instead, full attention requires mature presence of mind in constant balance with each moment and all that you must encounter in each moment.
A moment in time is infinite, containing infinite possibility. Full attention means grabbing onto that infinite possibility and allowing it to take you on your next step of your journey.
In full attention to all the details of life, as well as to the bigger picture, one has the opportunity to proceed along the path of transformation. Finally, while full attention asks for balance, it also asks you to accept the truths you now face. You must accept the truths of the self as they arise in order to move on into that horizon of infinite hope and possibility.
Like stacks of stones accept your truths as solid facts and then move on...
If you are stuck, caught somewhere along your path, you must come to your own rescue. Lift your head, look around you, accept your reality—the truths that batter you—and in so doing relieve yourself of the burden of them. With your eyes shifted in a new direction, take up your journey again and feel your way forward. Keep in mind that each step requires your full attention because each step you take is deeply meaningful and necessary.
Only you can discover just what meaning you are to discern from each step of your life’s journey. And only you, in full attention, have the power to transform your life as you proceed along the path that opens before you.
This is a week of commitment to the self, to life’s journey, and to taking it with your full attention and with awareness that you and every step, choice, thought, idea, truth and feeling you experience are deeply meaningful, revelatory, and absolutely necessary.
Begin today by lifting your head and looking around you, way beyond your normal circumstances and your normal point of view. Look far beyond your present life and your recent thoughts about the present self. Look at the sky above you and accept that you belong there in that life at this time. It’s up to you to take the journey to find out why.
Full attention means knowing that there is a reason for everything. Begin with knowing that you, a transformational being, are that reason. Accept your reality and then, in full attention, take the steps to change it. The power to change your life, to transform your reality, is in your hands.
Thank you Jeanne and our guides in Infinity! Channeled by Jan, most humbly and with love to you all as you journey onward.
I study Tao. I pull into my center, into the mandala of self, closing out all else. One morning I read the following: Always complete your actions.
I read further: When you do something, don’t hold back. Shoot for it all, go for it all. Don’t wait for a “better time,” because the better times are built on what you do today. Don’t be selfish with your skills, because the skills of tomorrow are built upon the performances of today.
To be with Tao is to live a creative life, I continue reading. To live a creative life always means that you express who you are. And expression is never helped by suppression. Expression always benefits from coming out. Then more inspiration will come from that source.
When you act, the advice is, act completely. Follow through. Do everything that has to be done. Be like the fire that burns completely clean: only from this pure stage can you then take the next step.
My early morning reading stays with me throughout the day. I ponder myself. Am I fully expressing myself every day, not holding back? Am I truly burning the fires within completely clean, so that I am free to take the next step unattached to the old? I recapitulate recent life events, and without hubris know that I am fallible, yet I am also intent on continually studying how to be more aware each day, even as I repeat old mistakes. Lessons are learned every day. I know this. I set my intent to give my all, to live and express to the fullest, to constantly follow through and complete my actions.
In the afternoon, I write. Working on the second book in The Recapitulation Diaries series, I face my old self of ten years ago. I see how much I have changed, and I also see where I still fall back into some old habits, not too often, I humbly say, and not too deeply, but just enough to let me know I have not completely burned through some rather tiresome old issues.
Inner fire...
Paying attention to the Tao reading I have gotten earlier in the day, I sit in stillness and go deeply into my present self. I sit in the center of my being, at the center of my mandala of self, and build a little fire. I intend to completely burn away the old self still lingering, to fully express it so that I may return to balance, to the mandala of self with its geometrical symmetry in calmness once again. I intend that new expression birth out of the old.
I am an observer. I can’t help it. It is my nature. I am a sensation type. Like a camera, I constantly take photographs of the world around me. I report on what I see. The world has always been “out there,” separate from my inner world. As an artist the two meet nicely, my talent offering a means of expression for how my outer world observations meet my inner world.
During my recapitulation, I learned how to turn my observer self inward upon myself, to train my camera on my past and zoom in on everything that came from deep within. My inner world turned cauldron-like as I recapitulated, as my camera honed in on the truths that lay at my core. The embers of the fire within flared up repeatedly until a nice fire was burning. Eventually, I burned off enough of the past that I was able to emerge out of the flames of recapitulation into new life, transformed, a totally different person.
During the fiery process, I discovered that recapitulation is not a one-time thing, but a lifelong process of study. Like Tao, it requires constant attention to deep inner truths, constant release and constant rebalancing, to achieve new, fresh life.
While pondering all of this, I hear a loud racket outside the window. Observer that I am, I cannot help but get up from my inner ponderings and take my camera self outside. Standing on the deck, I see my inner world, my morning’s study of Tao, in action. Nature, the grandest guide of all is playing out the very reading I have spent my day studying innerly.
Fluffy baby robins nesting under the deck...
As I watch, a shiny black crow swoops down into a tree and snatches a baby robin. I watch the robin parents and many others—birds of all kinds, even the tiny wrens—come to the rescue. An army of birds dive-bombs the crow, attempting to knock the fluff of baby bird from its beak. Shrieking and screaming, they fly at the crow repeatedly. Instinctively knowing that every second counts, they do not hold back. The crow, seemingly oblivious to the attacks, flies up to a branch and holding the baby beneath its claws, gives a loud and sharp CAW! Then it picks the baby up again and flies off with it in its beak. Flying directly over my head, I see the baby bird firmly clenched, most likely dead already. I accept this fact. It’s dead. The robins will never get it back. They have to give up, I think, just let it go. But do they “just let it go?” No! They chase after the crow! They do not accept defeat yet.
Shrieking, they fly after the crow, furiously attacking with sharp beaks. With stiffened wings, like knife cuts, they attempt to knock the baby loose. They do not give up, but complete their attempts to save the baby. They give it their all! And then, only when it is truly clear that there is nothing left to do, when the crow has flown off, do they then take the next step. Even now, they don’t simply “let it go.” Not yet!
There is still something else to do in order to complete this most traumatic event in their lives. Now they grieve! I hear them crying loudly. Horrific, heart-wrenching sobs of grief and mourning, the most gut-wrenching sounds of sorrow, erupt from their wide-open beaks. Their deep sadness, like a moaning Greek chorus, reaches the heavens and then back to me where I stand on the deck. I take in this profoundly moving process. The robins of nature are not holding back, not suppressing a thing, they are fully expressing their loss and the great depths of their sadness.
This deeply affecting wailing goes on for several minutes. Only when they are completely done, when they have fully expressed themselves and fully emptied themselves of their sorrow, do the robins return to their nest, to the tree where their baby was snatched from, perhaps back to tending other babies that may still remain, or to take the next step. There is always a next step, new life to experience.
Return to Tao...
In shock, I step back inside. In awe, I realize I have been given an example of Tao in action, of ALL. This is how to complete a task, how to give all to a situation, and then, only when truly done, to move on. In fighting as fiercely as they did, in not giving up, until there was no longer any reason to fight, then in grieving fully, the robins completed their task. Now new life can happen.
In Tao, in life, everything is meaningful. Everything is directed toward evolving. I take my experience seriously. I return to my inner circle of self, turn my camera inward again, and sitting in my calm mandala center, I go ever deeper. I understand more fully now what it means to take everything to its completion, to not hold back, to give my all. I am thankful for nature, once again showing me the way. I am thankful for Tao.
Give ALL. Always complete your intent, express fully, live fully, evolve.
In Tao,
Jan
NOTE: Excerpts are from Everyday Tao, by Deng Ming-Dao
Be kind to the self, but do not hold back that which you know should be done.
Be accommodating in your kindness, but do not overcompensate.
Be aware, but be also introspective.
Be alert to the signs now so prolific and meaningful, for this is indeed a time of great significance.
Crack the outer shell and find the deeper meaning inside...
Watch your tempers, your reactions, and your immediate responses to that which comes from without. Do not act upon your sensitive feelings, but let them sink beneath the skin of your outer self to the core of your inner self and from there seek meaning. This process of outer reaction turned inward must now become your constant practice. In this manner will you reach enlightenment.
Enlightenment comes in increments that you can handle, that you can take in and fully absorb.
Little enlightenments come every day. Experience them as part of a meaningful practice, building toward full acceptance of the self as a being of awareness.
Where are you today? What is your outer world pointing out? Feel within your body for that which is most important to contemplate and learn from. Turn eyes inward now and study the self. This is where the greatest enlightenment lies.
Be kind, but be fully responsible. Be an adult fully committed to finding the way in a world that is not conducive to such deep inner work. It doesn’t matter. Do it anyway.
All beings who do this work of taking responsibility for the self on a deeper level evolve all beings. This is where the energy of now is calling you, inward to a deeper understanding of life. Take the inward journey. It’s really all that matters. You will discover this the deeper you go.
Be inwardly brave and daring.
Be inwardly kind and forgiving.
Be inwardly strong and responsible.
Be inwardly loving and compassionate.
Be inwardly aware and alert.
Be inwardly alive to where your path wants you to go next.
We can’t stop nature from doing what it will and so we must learn to flow with it, to take action to protect ourselves within our knowledge of how nature works. On the other hand, we are responsible for what is happening in nature now. Although we are not directly responsible for thunderstorms, lightning strikes, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., there is plenty that we, the human race, have, by our very existence, altered forever on this planet. One of those things is poison ivy.
Leaves of three, let it be...
Several years ago, I heard a report on NPR about the proliferation of a new strain of poison ivy. This strain, I heard, was more potent than the kind of poison ivy I remember as a kid. This new strain of poison ivy grew into trees, as tall as six or ten feet, and it could kill. Now that was alarming to hear!
Having grown up in a rural environment, I learned early what poison ivy looked like. I knew its reddish hue in the spring meant beware, and I also knew that its bright green leaves later in the summer meant stay away. I had an eye for identifying plants early in life—it was just a knack. I knew to stay away from the flowers and berries of deadly nightshade from the time I was small and I’d often warn my friends that something was dangerous without even knowing how I knew it. I’d thought about becoming a botanist at one time, so fond and curious was I of what grew around me. Instead I became an illustrator and did, on many an occasion, get to draw the intricacies of the plant world for one book or magazine article or another.
If I got poison ivy, it was normally a minimal rash, easily dealt with. I never got covered like some people. I didn’t seem especially allergic to it, though I knew not to fool with it either, not to rub it or scratch, but to wash the oils off as soon as possible and let it dry out. I’d cover it with calamine and let it be and before long it would dry up without too much discomfort. I remember as a little kid having it on my face and at the time I just could not help but scratch, and boy did I suffer, but that also taught me a lesson. After that I learned to bear the tension of the itch and just get through the pain that nature itself had inflicted on me, knowing that it would soon be gone. That being said, even I was recently fooled.
One morning, Chuck and I were sitting in the yard enjoying a cup of coffee when I felt an itch. Thinking a bug was crawling up my arm, I lifted my sleeve to discover that my entire arm was covered in an ugly rash. “Oh my, look at that! Poison ivy! Where did that come from? I’m usually so careful!” I said. By the afternoon it had spread. Another, less vicious looking rash showed up on my other arm, my stomach broke out in angry red spots. Later an itch on the back of my neck showed up, another behind my ear, and was that one by my eye too? Suffice it to say, I had a bad case of poison ivy.
“This is exactly what I’d heard about years ago,” I said to Chuck, “poison ivy in a new, especially toxic strain, and it looks like I have it!”
Poison ivy: Global warming in our own backyard...
In reading up on that new strain of poison ivy, I note that in the few years since I first heard about it, its notoriety has spread along with it. Now it’s certain that we are largely responsible for this new potent strain of poison ivy, and there is no longer just one new potent strain, but many. The vines are rapidly spreading and the resulting contact itch much more difficult to treat.
With global warming has come an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a trapped greenhouse gas that is especially well liked by vines, especially the two that we see in the Northeast: Virginia creeper and poison ivy. That’s another thing I noticed not long ago. When I was a kid, Virginia creeper did just that, it crept along the ground, the floor of the forests covered with it, but I rarely saw it climbing trees the way it does now. Now both Virginia creeper and poison ivy, along with a host of other carbon dioxide-loving vines, are climbing higher and higher, overtaking other vegetation, seriously affecting the survival of our forests. Apparently this new poison ivy—that is rapidly inhaling our humanly-induced increase in carbon dioxide—carries a more toxic form of urushiol, the oil that causes the pesky itch.
As soon as I saw how quickly the rash was spreading, I knew I was in trouble. This was no ordinary case of poison ivy, this is what I saw on other people who were highly allergic, this was serious. I took immediate action. Changing my clothes, showering, and dousing myself with calamine and taking homeopathic rhus-tox were the first steps. Careful not to aggravate it, I let the rash air dry as much as possible, but it got worse. And then it got even worse. Now covered in angry blisters, I constantly had to fight the urge to scratch.
Now, anyone who has had poison ivy knows that there is nothing more satisfying than giving in to the urge to scratch away. Boy does that feel good! On the other hand, no amount of scratching will ever relieve the suffering, as scratching only spreads the rash and calls for yet more scratching.
The urge to scratch...boy does that feel good...
I found some relief in showering frequently, vicariously experiencing itch relief by letting the hot spiky water from the shower head do the scratching for me. I soon found that this was not a good idea, the heat of the water actually opening my pores to more of the poison. I knew I had to “grin and bear it,” as they say. I would not scratch in any way. I would use the itchiness to go into stillness. And so began my week of deepening my mindfulness practice, with poison ivy as my guide. In so doing, I learned something new about myself and each time I learned something new I took it deeper, intent on learning something else, not only about myself, but also about the greater world that I live in.
I’d wake up at night itchy. Surely a tiny little scratch here or there won’t hurt? Don’t do it! Bear the tension. Let it be. Go into meditation. Go beyond the skin. Go deeper inside. I will not scratch because I do not itch. I do not feel itchy at all. I am the Buddha. Flies are landing on my face and yet I do not flinch. I am the Buddha. Mosquitoes are buzzing in my eyes and yet I simply ignore them. I do not give them any energy. I am the Buddha. The snake is coming closer in the grass and yet I am not afraid. I sit in stillness and I disappear. I am the Buddha. In stillness I do not exist in this body. I am merely energy and thus the sensations of this body are meaningless. I can let them go.
I gradually leave my itchy body behind as I do this mindfulness practice, successfully removing myself from it enough as the night goes on that eventually I don’t attach. In the morning I wake up tired, but I have succeeded in avoiding the deathtrap, the itchiness that invites me to partake in the vicious cycle of relief and more agony, relief and more agony. I avoid the cycle of samsara, suffering, for one more night. And I must continue this practice during the day as well. I must not lift my hand to scratch behind my ear. I am the Buddha. I must leave my hand down, sit with the sensation, detaching from it, cooling it with my thoughts at the same time that I seek external remedies for my suffering.
Like the Buddha I must suffer through the onslaughts...
I suffer through five days of extreme discomfort before the rash subsides. Chuck looks at it one day and declares it done. I’ve conquered it. There is still an occasional itchiness, but the blisters have dried, the redness has diminished, the spread halted. I have learned what it means to suffer through an onslaught of nature, a manmade disaster as I now see it, and I hope that others may come through such an attack in good form too.
My mindfulness practice with poison ivy as my guide led me many places, to many journeys within and without, to greater understanding and acceptance of my role as a user on this planet. The world is changing and we are largely responsible for many of these changes. That is clear to me now. Every one of us, by our very breathing, effect and are affected by these changes. Whether it’s a bad case of poison ivy or a nuclear disaster like Fukushima, we are all part of the problem and we will all suffer, our bodies especially.
I had to ask some hard questions. So, how are we going to handle the inevitable crisis we have inflicted on ourselves? Are we going to make it worse by scratching and complaining about others, about the poisons put into our atmosphere by others? It’s easy to give up, to indulge in bad behaviors, to wallow in self-pity and to blame. It’s much harder to take full responsibility and change ourselves.
The challenge we face now is to accept what our human greed has done and—in full knowledge of our personal participation in the disasters we create and continue to create—take everything to a new level. We must accept our human limitations and work to deepen our connection to our energetic selves, personally and as an interconnected species, taking everything far beyond the human energy that we so value and indulge in to a greater understanding of our energy as no different than that of the fly or the mosquito that pesters us. We are all life’s energy having experiences here on earth.
Everyday now, I accept that I am part of the changing world. My mindfulness practice has deepened my awareness of what it means that I live here too, that I impact everything too. I too have poisoned the fish in the ocean. I too have dirtied the waters and contaminated the soil. I too have contributed to the greenhouse gases. I too am responsible for the wars and the terrible massacres that are happening around the globe. I too am an abuser. I too am greedy. I too am an addict.
I cannot change what has happened. It has already happened. The only thing I can do now is, from this moment on, make a decision to live my life differently, with awareness and mindfulness, committed to making better personal choices. The time of change is now. 2012 is upon us and, by the potent state of things, has been for a long time. Are we going to stay splintered, unaccepting of our personal human role in all of this that we have created? Or are we going to each individually take the next step to deepening our interconnected awareness and really changing ourselves so that we may change our world too? That’s the only challenge I see ahead of us now.
The earth will survive, but I don’t think we, as a species, will—unless we take some drastic measures to insure that our planet will be able to support us. With even the most basic requirements of air and water in jeopardy, let alone everything else we need to survive in even the most primitive conditions, how do we expect to evolve as a species?
I challenge myself to constantly create better balance in my own life while seeking to live in greater harmony with the world I find myself in.
