(Written by request of the Global Compassion Coalition)
Nearly six years ago my wife, Charlotte, and I closed our businesses and sold everything, left our community in Jackson, Mississippi and began our journey into world citizenship. We’ve been staying in countries as long as our visa allows, usually three months. We pick countries with low costs of living because we’re just living off our social security income. We find an inexpensive place to rent, shop for local food and cook our meals and avoid tourist traps.

There are two practices we do – our way of being of service, everywhere we go. We pick up trash. In Panama we’re with a group called Basura Busters and everywhere else we pick up and recycle as part of Trash Busters International.

But it is the second practice that I want to focus on here. We’re deep into our 70’s, so we walk a lot (4-5 miles a day) to stay healthy. We often walk where lots of other people are also walking and it is in these interactions with sometimes hundreds of people each day that so many opportunities for building trust arise.

The practice is really quite simple. We smile, we give friendly eye contact, we gesture a greeting, we say hi or good morning (in the native language). We’re ready with compliments for people taking care of animals or children or each other. Charlotte loves to tell people how nice their hair or clothing looks. Nearly everyone appreciates being noticed and recognized.

This simple practice, repeated thousands of times, begins to transform a community. After a while, we aren’t quite strangers anymore and more people start greeting us back. Gradually, the areas we walk in become less fearful, suspicious, and isolated. Harmlessness, care, empathy, and joy blossom.

Now building cultural trust is not just an outer exercise. There is a crucial inner component. We need to be coming from an authentic place of loving everyone. When there are too many people to greet or someone is on their phone or talking to someone, we can send a thought like, “May you be happy,” or “May you be well” or “May you be at peace”. When I see someone is already happy, I’ll wish them to be even happier!

We practice this with absolutely everyone – young and old, everyone. In looking into everyone’s face you can get a good insight into their state of mind, which helps in fine tuning the greeting.

Before we arrive in a country, we learn what we can about the people and place. Reading the full Wikipedia article is a good starting place. Have respect and curiosity about what is unique about the place you are going to be in. At a very minimum, learn how to say Hello, Good Morning and Thank You in the native language. If you get in a situation where you agree to do something, make sure you follow through.

One might get the idea to grab the travel guide and look for an exotic location to start this practice. But building trust between cultures actually starts right where we are. It starts with the people closest to us. Every one of us has different backgrounds and experiences and it takes careful listening to recognize each person’s unique view of the world. It is with the people closest to us – those in our household, workplace and neighborhood – that we build the relational habits we take out into the deeper world. Before our life outside the USA, we jogged in our neighborhood every morning, picking up all the trash we came across and greeting absolutely everyone, those we knew and those we didn’t. Nearly every day since 1999 Charlotte and I have started our day by looking into each other’s eyes and vowing, “I promise to rededicate my life with you to being loving, kind and present.” Today, so far so good. But the practice makes each day alive with new challenges.

The need for healing between cultures is so great, humanity needs as many cross-cultural healers as we can recruit. It takes time and perseverance, but building trust is so worth doing. Know that the world very much appreciates every effort you make.

We aren’t seeing it all. Not nearly. Everything we think, say, do – ripples out endlessly. And every one of our moments is experienced in the thickest of soups of all the ripples from everywhere that have gone before it. Of course, there is intelligence in these ripples. Your intelligence, my intelligence, everyone’s intelligence. And could we possibly be so ignorant as to assume that the universe around us that gave rise to our intelligence was not also intelligent. And do we notice that we can relate to intelligence somewhat above and below our own, but at a point we lose conscious communication with intelligence that goes beyond our understanding. And of course, just because we can’t perceive it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

So miracles. Mysteries.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

So yesterday, during our Game Changer Intensive zoom small group, Ron starts talking about a book by Marshall Rosenberg, “Nonviolent Communication”. Ron and I have never met. We are thousands of miles apart. Google says there are 129,864,880 different books in our world.

Also yesterday, Charlotte and I arrive at a villa in the mountains in central Colombia. We get to our room a couple hours before the zoom meeting. There are 4 books in the room. A strange collection. A children’s book in Spanish. A catalog for ordering parts on-line. Something in Spanish about Hypertension. And… Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication.

Over a decade ago, a dear friend had given me this book and I had started reading it. Now another opportunity. So when the zoom call started, I had it next to me on our bed. I had just read, “What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.”

I was thinking, I too would like that in my life. And so our zoom call arises, and compassion begins flowing among us. And as we sit here this morning, Antonio brings us coffee and tea. At the end of the string on my tea bag, there are some words.

“Lo essencial es invisible a los ojos.” El principito

Translated.

“The essential is invisible to the eyes.“ The Little Prince

I see. The synchronicity goes on and on…

There are so many distractions. And then there is what we are really here for.

There are so many identities. And then there is who we really are.

Remembering and forgetting.

I once read a book by Rene Dumal called Mount Analog. It’s unfinished. He died mid-sentence. It is a story of the pursuit of spiritual evolution.

So I’ve started writing, Return to Mount Analog. I hope to get further than Rene.

Or maybe it’s more like I’m letting go of my mind.

I had all these habitual ways of thinking – about myself, about relationships, about roles, about the way the world works. I thought they were pretty good habits of thinking. They served me pretty well. I’m still alive. I’m pretty happy. Pretty good relationships. Comfortable living. And of course, the words and actions that flowed from that thinking are what actualized my ‘ok’ life.

But now I’m throwing all that away – or it is being thrown away for me. I can’t tell the difference. It’s a bit scary. The new thinking might be worse than what I had. That’s the scary part. But evolving is really limited, if I (we) hold onto our familiar ways of thinking. I think we’ve all heard the quote attributed to Einstein, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

The new way of thinking feels pretty raw. Like an experiment. Untested. Don’t know where it leads. Not sure if our language can properly express it. But I think it is worth a try.

The area I want to start with is how I (we) think of ‘ourselves.’ I’ve always looked at my body and assumed, yup, that’s me. Who else would it be?! But science has me a bit concerned about this basic assumption. For one thing, every one of the 30-50 trillion cells in this body are not the cells that were in this body when I was young and believing my body was me. That me – that body – is entirely gone. And science tells me that about a hundred million cells (that I thought were me) die and get flushed away every minute!

And then when it comes to the percent of our cells that are human DNA, well, I guess I used to assume that it was all human. But come to find out that it’s only about 43% human. So, most of this body is not even human. In fact, it’s a community of over 10,000 species. I’m hoping they (we) continue to find a way to get along with each other.

So, we are now shifting away from the illusion that this body is me. I know this is weird. You see a picture of my body and you think it’s me. I look in the mirror and think this is me. Nope. Not me. I don’t have a good comfortable way of talking about this body now, but nevertheless, I seem to be in here somewhere or somehow.

I hope you are catching the gravity of this shift. Because when I see you (or even picture you in my mind), I’m realizing you also are not who I thought you were.

So, I made a shift long ago and identified with my mind. Thoughts, memories, ideas, plans, beliefs – all me. But then I got introduced to LSD in Reno, Nevada back in the 60’s and saw how ephemeral each thought was. And how a stream of thought was not a stream at all. It was just a lot of momentary arisings and passing aways. And science has taught me how memories are not even close to what the actual experience in the moment was. Crap, more illusion falling away.

So, this has left me with a sense of self that is pretty empty. I should mention that for years now, I have spent one to two hours every day meditating. That is, I practice staying focused on this arising and passing away of experience. And I’ve studied a lot of what the Buddha taught. And my experience tells me that what he taught is pretty accurate. He described how the illusion of self is sustained and I think he is right. Check it out for yourself.

So lately I’ve taken up the study of quantum physics and how the revelations of this science should have profound impacts on how we see and experience reality. Classical physics with its practical applications in the world of matter is now eclipsed by the quantum understanding that all matter is actually just vibrations packed together – there is no such thing as a ‘solid.’ Those little colored balls that we were told were atoms? They don’t exist. Not like that. Not only that, but the very existence of these vibrations or waves arise and pass away momentarily without cause. Without cause!!! The most we can say about these ‘appearances’ is that there is a certain probability that they will appear here or there and at one energy level instead of another level.

So the profound effect this knowledge has for me, is that this world is one of probabilities and potentialities. And it is in this world that the thoughts I experience arise and pass away. I can’t know what the next thoughts that arise in my mind might be. Do I trust the whole of the Universe to give rise to these thoughts? Trust or not, isn’t that what has really been happening all this time?

It would be great to end this little written adventure with some tidy conclusion. But that is probably not going to happen. It might. But it might not. This is what the point of evolution feels like. Uncertainty. Wonder. It feels like emptiness from the old point of view, but it feels like wholeness or unity in a new way.

A tiny percent of what we are experiencing arrives in our consciousness – a little late – but it gets there. And it feels like (for now, just feels like) I have some choice, some free will to a tiny extent. The more present I am, the more choice it feels like exists. This is huge. Choosing to slow and deepen my breathing. Choosing which words to use. Choosing actions or not. Choosing reactions or not. And what makes this huge, is the question of what should guide these choices.

Back to the 60’s again. At that time, the US government told me the best way to serve was to go to Viet Nam and kill people. That didn’t seem right to me. After some soul searching, I decided that I needed to serve the Earth – as best I knew how. Of course, the US government didn’t agree and convicted me of two felonies. By some amazing grace, I just barely avoided federal prison.

So where did that idea come from – to serve the Earth. It’s pretty obvious that a lot of our thinking is coming from our body and sense data. Associations and assumptions and habits rule most of this and really it should not be called thinking. Let’s call it mind activity. We’re all full of it. But in our quietest moments, is it possible that some ideas come into us from an invisible realm?  Before going any further with this, I need to reference a powerful insight usually attributed to Henry Ford. “If you think you can, you probably can. If you think you can’t, you probably can’t.” But it is broader than that. It’s also, If you think it is possible, it might be. If you think it’s not possible, it probably isn’t. And there is this: If you think you should, you probably should. If you think you shouldn’t, you probably shouldn’t. So, there is inside us, this powerful switch we can turn on or off. And it opens a world of possibilities, or it shuts down those possibilities.

I think it is possible that the Earth can send us ideas. Trees can do it. Animals can do it to us. When I read quotes from so many native people, I get the sense that they too believe that the natural world can speak to those of us who will listen.

I don’t suffer much. Not like I used to. I’ve learned so many of the ways that my thinking was the cause of that suffering and I just don’t think that way anymore. We could all do without that kind of thinking that heaps levels and levels of additional suffering into our moments.

I walk for an hour or more every morning along the sea. I meet hundreds of others along the way. Running, jogging, walking, strolling. I’ve taken up the practice of looking at each person, really taking them in, really seeing them, and wishing them to have more happiness. I’m liking it.

And that is how I’m going to leave this. I’m going to wish you more happiness and believe that it is possible that my wish for you can really come true.

Love,

Luke Small Meadow (Lundemo in Norwegian)

Here is wishing myself and all of us can learn to have our heart be more involved with our thinking, our speech, and our actions.

Next to our brain, our hearts have more neurons than anywhere else in our body. And our hearts send more instructions to our brains, than our brains send to our hearts.

And when it comes to that invisible electromagnetic field around each of us, it is our heart that generates the strongest field – easily detectable over three feet out from our skin.

So many of our moments have us living from our head, with our hearts really not into it.

So much of our speech comes from our head disconnected from the experience of our heart.

And our actions? Disconnection from our hearts allows for so much cruelty, so much insensitivity.

When our hearts lead, emotions like empathy, love, compassion, and care radiate strongly into our world.

I don’t think our heads alone will be able to heal much of the suffering in our world. But our hearts? Imagine a world where all of us are surrounded in loving relations. Where we were able to keep our hearts open and we were always meeting people with open hearts, who spoke from their hearts.

What a wonderful world this would be.

We are like fish in an ocean of karma. It is in us. It is around us. There is nothing we sense or think or feel that is not saturated in karma.

There is one radical change that can happen in this situation. The one who experiences karma can dissolve. This change ends suffering and dissatisfaction, but it is unlikely to happen spontaneously. There are three karmic fields, that when cultivated carefully, lead to this dissolution. Thoughts, words, actions.

For most of us, most of the time, there is no space between cause and effect with our thinking, our speaking, and our actions. To make this radical change, we must open up space between cause and effect so the magic of choice can enter, and redirect causes into new effects.

We see our thoughts and their effects and choose thoughts that don’t have the effects of causing suffering to ourselves, others or our world.

We see the words we are about to speak and know their effects. Instead, we choose words (or silence) that heal rather than hurt.

We notice our actions we are about to move into. We refrain from those that deepen our entanglement with illusion. We instead choose actions that support our efforts to be free.

Don’t believe any of it.

It’s not another night or another day.

It’s not another May or June.

It’s not another weekend or another Monday.

It’s not another year, or decade or century.

All of these measures of time are illusions that put us to sleep.

Every single moment is fresh, new, unique. It never repeats in any way.

It’s not another breath – it’s this breath!

There is nothing we put our eyes on that is not fresh and new. It is all changing.

Some things as fast as a chirping bird sound

Others as slow as the rise and fall of a mountain.

And in our internal experience – there have never been two identical moments.

You can try to think you are the same person you were at some point in the past – but it wouldn’t be true.

Don’t back off from the unknown elements of the Now. Embrace the unpredictability, the possibilities.

Live fully alive.

Don’t pretend you’ve done this before. Seen this before. Felt this way before.

Let’s get real.

Written on approximate universal date 5,029,492,544,323.9000

Is it true for you also, that you have had one self-identity your whole life and it just shifts incrementally and unnoticeable? But there is at least one constant in that self-identity. Separation. I am (you are) a separate something.

Consider that that constant, separateness, is not in fact true. And consider if it is possible to remove that false assumption.

Look at your belly button. It should be a reminder to us that we started out not being separate. Then snip. And since then we have been separate. At least it appears that way. What is not so obvious is that at about the same time that the umbilical cord was cut, a new dependency was started with the interaction of our lungs with the air. And if we take a moment to notice, that dependency has not stopped for our entire life and is going on right at this moment: breathing. At the same time we were cut from our mother, we became attached to the atmosphere of the earth. And here we are.

All of our mothers also had this connectedness to the earth atmosphere. All of our living mothers still have this connectedness. We are, along with all living and breathing beings dependent and connected in this same way. Always have been and always will be. It’s a fact. Can we integrate that fact into our identity?

I recently watched a dozen piglets sucking on their mother. Can you picture an earth sized mother pig and ourselves and every other breathing being sucking on it as if our life depended on it, which it does? If we can see this, we can see that separateness is a lie and connectedness is true.

The connectedness goes even deeper than this. What gives us our life out of this atmosphere is oxygen. And what puts oxygen into the atmosphere is photosynthesis. And this vitally connects us to the sun and all plant life. The sun is not separate from us. Trees, grass, flowers they are not separate from us. It is brutal, false, dishonest and deadly to hold an identity that is not connected to the light and warmth of the sun, the life in all the green living plants, the energy in each breath of air and to all the beings that live with us in this exact same dependency.

This shift of self-identity does not come automatically or easily. It is an immensely richer identity than that lonely, fragile and false separate identity.

This shift of self-identity changes everything. Without this shift of identity in great numbers of us, we are unlikely to survive this sixth great extinction. The separate identity is actually causing this extinction and has the ability to ignore and forget about the great extinction. The connected identity feels it constantly and applies ourselves toward protecting all life.

And that is why your and my efforts to shift our self-identity from separateness to connectedness is a life and death issue.

It’s Not A New Normal. It’s Abnormal.

It’s no longer Life-After-Life.

It’s now something unknown that comes after Life-After-Life.

The Chinese character for Crisis is composed of two Chinese characters signifying “danger” and “opportunity” respectively.

The danger part is pretty obvious. So what is the opportunity?

I’m thinking (on a macro level) the opportunity is to save humanity from near certain extinction.

Personally, the opportunity is going to have a unique look for every single person.

Don’t look for someone else to tell you your opportunity. It’s an opportunity to create a new self. A new version of yourself.

Let’s start with this question. Can you imagine yourself as a better self – as a super version of yourself?

If not, maybe this is a good time to give it some thought.

Ok. On to those of you who have given this some thought – maybe some of you have been thinking about this for a long time.

Then the question is this: How to make such a transformation?

You might have already found that there are a lot of efforts that don’t give the desired results.

It’s important to realize that our conscious efforts are about 5% of what goes on in our brain. If our conscious efforts run against the 95% of the brain that is unconscious, then the conscious efforts don’t stand much of a chance.

Our environment is reinforcing our old habits in thousands of ways that we don’t even see. It seems hopeless but it is not. It can’t be.

I’ve been listening to a series on Gaia – a Netflix like offering – called Rewired, narrated by Dr. Joe Dispenza. I first came in contact with Dr. Dispenza through the movie, “What the Bleep Do We Know?”

I carefully read his book, “Evolve Your Brain”.

For my part, I’m going to forget who I know you to be. I’m going to imagine each of you shedding an old skin or going into a chrysalis and the old you turning to soup that feeds the formation of a totally new you. A new you that is finding your place in the opportunity to save humanity from extinction.

It’s a long shot. But it’s the only shot we have.

Not what you think. Not like a game ending buzzer. More in the direction of time going into slow motion. Like in a car wreck or falling off a roof. (I hope you have more pleasant examples.)

In the book, “I Am That”, Nisargadatta Maharaj says “The real does not die, the unreal never lived.” So, while some consciousness gets wrapped up in schedules and deadlines and goals, other consciousness returns to its timeless roots. And what is that journey like? Most of that trip is the distance between identifying with the body and stuff and not identifying with the body and stuff. The end of the trip is the ancient city of Consciousness. The journey can take lifetimes, or it could happen now.

Georgieff taught his students how to ‘die before you die.’ We normally identify with so much that is not real. Make a quick inventory of all the stuff you own. It is said that what you own, also owns you. Try a brief exercise. Just now, imagine it is all gone. It might take a minute to really feel it.

Did you do it? And here you still are. This journey we’re talking about, must be traveled very lightly. You might work at it and get down to a few suitcases. Then with more work, you may get down to just a backpack. Then the backpack gets lost. And there is still more that must go.

For as long as you can remember, you have been carrying this body around. You don’t remember what it was like before that. You have identified with your body so consistently it has become an unconscious assumption. It’s probably true also that when those brief electrical storms happen inside your head (thoughts) we identify with them, too.

So, the instructions tell us that to reach the ancient city of Consciousness, we can’t even take “our” body or “our” thoughts. We get there when we float through the gate on absolute emptiness. In the city of Consciousness there is no time. The city is even much stranger than that. Everyone there has no boundaries. Also, there is no up or down or inside or outside. This is the place – the source – of where all things are possible. We find here the peace that surpasses all understanding.

You have already started this journey. You have let go of some things that hurt you. Maybe there is more to let go of in that realm. There is something right in front of each of us, where the work is to learn how to let it go. Of course, everyone works at their own pace.

Wishing you well and have a nice trip.