Meditation

I’ve written extensively about how indispensable it is to let go of our egoic attachments. We can meditate all day long, chant, practice mindfulness and qi gong, but we’ll still be stuck unless we let go.

It isn’t easy. Most of the “stuff” stuck in our lower selves has been there for a long, long time so releasing it takes a boatload of intention and a boatload of effort. But as I’ve written multiple times, that effort and exertion is worth its weight in spiritual gold.

Hence, I’m always on the lookout for tips and techniques to aid in letting go. One such aid comes from something I’ve heard some prominent spiritual teachers do, Mickey Singer foremost among them.

Before I get to what that is, let me tell you why I’m writing about this today. The idea came to me during a trip to Washington, D.C., over the weekend.

Mr. Gerken flails in Washington

The subject was that seemingly trivial, but vexing to me, subject of tennis. For those of you who haven’t had to endure my tennis BS before, the short story is that I played a bunch as a kid then in college for four years at Princeton, followed by a brief and disastrous attempt at the pros.

Bottom line: I still have issues with it, though not so much of the thinking, psychological type. I played in the finals of a club championship in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on Saturday (can you think of anything less consequential in the grand scheme of war in Ukraine, civil unrest in America and a fraught economy?).

I know, intellectually, that rinky-dink tennis tournaments are not the be-all, end-all for me. But that’s what is so fascinating about this. Because despite knowing this, I get strong feelings of anxiety and nervousness when I play in these things. That’s when you know it’s old baggage.

I know it in my head, but not in my gut

This match, in particular, had my stomach in knots the morning of. I purposely did not use my rational mind to quash those feelings by saying something like, “This is so stupid. Who cares? You’re 58 years old wigging out because of a ridiculous tennis match!” Doing that would definitely have helped calm my nerves.

Why didn’t I allow myself to do that? Because I wanted to go deeper than that by actually letting those feelings go. How? By repeatedly relaxing and leaning away from the feeling to give it room to release upward. In other words, I wanted to use this opportunity to let go of some of this trapped, deep-seated energy. It was hard. And painful.

Anyway, the match rolls around and we have a 2 ½ hour slugfest that is best described, from my end, as a Murphy’s Law bout — whatever could go wrong did go wrong. Needless to say, I lost.

A mostly miserable match

I pulled a hamstring muscle early in the first set, got incredibly tired as the match wore on and frankly was a miserable mess most of the time. Looking back on it, there was only one great thing that happened during the match, which is going to sound odd, but is a direct consequence of all the spiritual work I’ve done these past several years.

It was this. We played indoors so the spectators were upstairs behind a glass. The fantastic thing that happened was when I’d look up at the spectators, usually after a good point for me, I’d see my friend, Janie, smiling and giving me a thumbs up.

A quick digression for some background. We met in 1986 when I was a college intern for Senator George Mitchell of Maine for whom Janie was the office receptionist and liaison with visiting constituents. Senator Mitchell loved Janie and viewed her as his secret weapon because all those visiting Mainers (AKA voters) loved her.

Sunny Janie

Janie is one of those people who has been blessed with beautiful, positive energy that lights up those around her. For the past 36 years she has been part close friend, part sister and even part mom at times.

And that was why I kept looking up at her during the match. Seeing that big smile and knowing that she loved and cared about me made my heart swell when the rest of my body felt like it had been in a car accident.

So what does all this have to do with letting go? At the airport later that day, I couldn’t stop thinking about the match I’d lost. To a guy I should have beaten. To a guy I had on the ropes almost the whole match.

I kept trying to let it go, but it kept creeping back. Again and again.

Epiphany at National Airport

Then it occurred to me that the best part of the match, and the entire day, was looking up and seeing Janie. And I thought, why am I not thinking about that? That’s when I finally had the thought that inspired this article, which was: “Man, I wish I could get rid of David Gerken.”

Why? Because David Gerken, who is the amalgamation of experiences that I’ve held onto for decades, is the one who gets pissed off and spun up about losing a tennis match and who has all kinds of other nutty foibles. And I would love nothing more than to let him go.

I’ve heard Mickey Singer do this for years, both in his books and talks. He’ll say, “Oh, I never listen to Mickey. I learned a long time ago that he’s always wrong!”

Mickey letting go of Mickey

The more profound example came from his book The Surrender Experiment. Mickey was an enormously successful businessman who’d created a medical software company with north of 2,000 employees.

In order to save his own skin from a crime he’d committed, one of Mickey’s employees made up a story that Mickey and other higher-ups had been cooking the books. It took several years before Mickey was cleared.

But what did he take from that brutal experience? He said it provided a valuable opportunity to get rid of any remaining remnants of “Mickey.” Any ego that had built up due to his massive success he targeted for letting go.

He let go of Mickey. I’m trying to let go of David Gerken.

The takeaway

It clicked with me when I used my name while stewing at the airport. There’s my conscious, true self and there’s David Gerken. I love the stark contrast it sets up.

That contrast helps me to better identify and then let go of David Gerken when he arises. I hope this resonates with you. If so, give it a try.

For those who may not have heard it, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ‘em,” is an American expression that means if someone or something is too strong for you to defeat, it is better to join that someone or something. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but not always.

A Frenchman like Marshal Petain collaborating with the Nazis in World War II after Hitler’s army blitzed through France is seen as a wholly cowardly, self-interested move.

KD is going to the Warriors.

Other examples are more debatable. Was the basketball star Kevin Durant leaving the losing Oklahoma City Thunder to join the championship-winning Golden State Warrior team, where KD promptly won two NBA titles, opportunistic and wrong? Some say yes, and some say no.

But there’s no debate about the example I offer in this article: If you can’t beat the Universe, join it. Helpful hint — there are no ifs, and, or buts about it…You can’t destroy the Universe, so join it!

Let’s break this into two pieces. First, how and why can’t we beat the Universe? Then let’s dive into what it means to join the Universe.

Why we can’t beat the Universe

Before wading into why we can’t beat the Universe, let’s define what I mean by ‘The Universe.’ In short, I mean life. The world. Everything we encounter. That’s the Universe.

Why can’t we beat it? Because 99.99999% of everything that happens in the world is completely out of our control. Like what?

Here’s a big example. Sometime in late 2019, a bat bit an animal in some forest in China. That animal wound up at an exotic foods market in Wuhan, where some hapless shopper bought it, ate it, got COVID, and died.

A bat upended our world.

That one bat is biting that one animal, completely upended planet Earth for two years! Restaurants, shops, and entire industries (tourism) were thoroughly decimated. They had no control over what happened in China. Do you still want to try and beat the Universe?

Let’s take something smaller, like your work environment. You go into the office and deal with the same cohort of 5–10 people daily. A boss, a few underlings, and some coequals.

Well, let’s be honest, it’s usually really difficult! Why? As the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre famously said:

“Hell is other people.”

Most of the people we work with are one or more of the following: catty, petty, insecure, narcissistic, sensitive, selfish, and arrogant. I know that sounds harsh and cynical, but it’s mostly true.

And here’s the thing: It’s mostly not their fault. People are the product of their parents, siblings, friends, society, genetic makeup, religious upbringing, and, nowadays, social media influences…all of which are already baked into the cake of every person you see at work. Thousands upon thousands of incidents and experiences have shaped that person you see in the office kitchen every morning as you prepare your coffee.

We have no chance of fixing all of these people that annoy or infuriate us at work. Fighting, resisting, and judging people, at work, in this case, is a life-sucking, pointless endeavor. We can’t win this battle.

What does it mean to ‘join the Universe?’

There are myriad other examples of how fighting the Universe is futile, but let’s move on to part two of the equation: Joining the Universe. What does that look like?

If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be surrender. We macho Westerners often see surrender as a sign of weakness, not so in the spiritual case.

What is surrender? It’s accepting the reality of what the Universe has put in front of you.

I find it best to describe surrender by expounding on its opposite…Resistance. Using our two examples, COVID turned our world upside down. Resisting that would look like,

“I can’t believe this is happening to me! I just started this internet café and now I’m screwed! Why does this have to happen to me?”

Surrendering would look like this,

“COVID has probably killed my new internet café venture. There’s nothing I can do about it so let’s figure out the best possible move I can make. Maybe the Universe has something even better in store for me.”

How do we “join the Universe” about our work colleagues? We work hard at not resisting our coworkers and who they are. If you find out that the narcissistic weasel in the cubicle next to you is trying to get you fired, sure, you deal with it from a place of measured presence and not egoic reactivity.

The basic strategy

But the overall strategy is to surrender to the reality of who these people are. Because when you gossip and get all spun up about those people, it is YOU who suffers. It’s just sending negative energy to every corner of your being. Also, remember that none of us is perfect; we all bring baggage to the table, at work, at home, and everywhere else.

The good news is that when we do devote ourselves to joining the Universe instead of constantly trying to beat it, good things start happening. Like what? Everything. For one, we feel better, AKA, we become happier.

And because we’re not fighting with everyone and everything, we free up a boatload of energy to do great things in the world. To become better parents, friends, and coworkers. And also better salespeople, golfers, accountants, and every job under the sun.

The takeaway

So there you have it. Look at your life. See where you’re fighting the Universe. At home, at the office, wherever.

Then practice surrendering in those areas. Work on not resisting reality.

The Universe (or God, nature, or whatever your belief system is) wants us to be in tune with it. Once people realize that and build their life around it, profoundly good things happen.

I’m amazed that with all the pieces I’ve written about Mickey Singer, I haven’t written about his favorite line of wisdom. It’s the first line in the Verses on the Faith Mind by Sengcan, otherwise known as the Third Zen Patriarch.

First, a quick bit of background on Zen, patriarchs and all that jazz. The short, and I mean short, story is that Buddhism was started by Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) in northern India in the sixth century BC.

The subsequent millennia saw Buddhism spread mostly north and east throughout southeast Asia to modern-day countries like Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, China and Japan.

Zen and the Patriarchs

Zen Buddhism was started in China in the fifth century CE by the monk Bodhidharma. He was the First Zen Patriarch, Daza Huike was the second and Sengcan the third.

As for the differences between Zen and traditional Buddhism, books could be written about that, and I’m sure many have been. In my own limited reading on the topic, it seems the most important difference is the influence that Taoism (also originating in China) had on Zen.

Let’s leave it at that and move on to the main attraction — the first line of Sengcan’s Verses on the Faith Mind:

“The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.”

By ‘Great Way,’ Sengcan means the life of the awakened being. Someone who is in total harmony with the universe, nature and all things.

Preference over desire

And then we have that transcendent word ‘preferences.’ This is the word Mickey uses in his teachings.

As many of you know, Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths center on the belief that desire is the root cause of suffering. Remove the desire, by following the Eightfold Path, and you eliminate the suffering.

The problem I have with the word desire is that it presumes to be about only the things that we want. Things like sex, good food and drink, designer clothes, big houses, the perfect boyfriend, etc. Eliminate the desire for those things and we’re home free.

Desire is also about what we DON’T want

But that is only one-half of the desire equation. Because the Buddhists aren’t saying that we suffer only from wanting too much. They’re also saying we suffer because of what we don’t want to happen. That would be things like bad health, getting fired from a job and your spouse leaving you. That part of the desire equation is mostly about what we fear.

Which is why I, and I think Mickey too, like to use the word preference instead of desire. Suffering is caused by preferring to get X and preferring to not get Y. It’s about wants and not-wants.

Which leads to one of the Big Kahuna of all Big Kahuna questions in spirituality, which centers on what Sengcan is asking us to do: Are we really supposed to live a life with no preferences?

The answer is yes. There’s a ton that could be written about all this, but I’ll limit it to a few points/observations.

Happy people don’t need a lot

When you think of the happiest, most peaceful people you know, are they those who need things to be just so? People who need their half-caf, double macchiato with just the right mixture of two percent and skim milk? Or people who need everybody to behave perfectly at the dinner table or their night goes up in flames?

Or are the happy, peaceful types those who need very little? A cup of tea and a walk in the woods and they’re happy as a clam. Four people are deciding where to have dinner and they don’t say a peep — they’ll be fine with any restaurant.

The needy vs. the un-needy

Who’s happier: The person who lives in constant fear of losing their job, losing their loved ones and losing their relationship? Or the person who coexists with all those things, not wanting them to happen, but knowing that they will be okay if they do?

Let’s face it, Sengcan was right about this preference thing.

Now, at the risk of throwing a monkey wrench into your view of life, let’s take this preference concept a big step further:

Preferences/wants/desires are NOT natural.

WHAT???

You read that correctly. Preferences emanate from our not being okay inside.

“I’m not okay, but I will be okay if I eat that pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia.”

“I’m not okay, but I will be okay if I get that promotion.”

“I’m not okay, but I will be okay if my boyfriend stays with our relationship.”

Bottom line: Preferences spring from our egos. And our egos are the product of all the experiences we’ve had in life that we didn’t let go of.

As Mickey says, if we were okay inside, we wouldn’t need anything. Just being alive. Just being would be more than enough if all was well inside.

The takeaway

So what’s the upshot of the teaching on Sengcan’s simple, eloquent line? Is it to work on our wants and not-wants? Meaning, should I just get tougher and stronger the next time I want to devour all ten chocolate chip cookies my daughter has just made?

No. We want to work at the root, as the Buddhists teach.

What’s the root of this problem of wanting and not wanting? Working on why we’re not okay inside.

Why are we not okay inside? Because our egos dominate our lives; which manifests as incessant, pointless thinking and constant emotions of fear, jealousy, impatience and on down the line.

How do we get our egos in check? By quieting down inside and letting go of the egoic baggage we’ve held onto for most of our lives.

How do we get quiet inside? By practicing meditation, mindfulness, spending time in nature, chanting mantras and any number of things that produce quietude.

How do we let go of our baggage? We set the intention that when that baggage is poked, we relax and let it go rather than jump in and inflame it.

These last few paragraphs outline the work of our lives. Get quiet and let go.

The more we practice these things, the more okay we’ll be inside.

The more okay we are inside, the less we’ll want/prefer/desire things.

And the less we prefer, the firmer our footing in The Great Way…

It’s my experience that people can be overwhelmed by descriptions of the spiritual path. Words and concepts like ‘awakening,’ ‘witness consciousness,’ and ‘the process of nonattachment,’ come off as intimidating and off-putting to many.

For those who consider themselves mere spiritual mortals (like me), a more relatable, practical description can be helpful. Here’s my non woo-wooey description of the spiritual path:

Training our minds.

That’s it. That’s the gist of what all spiritual work is about.

It’s like pumping iron

It’s not that different than training anything. Let’s take training the body, specifically, weightlifting. Your goal might be to turn to tone up and firm up any flabby muscles.

So you do curls to tone your biceps. Rows to tone your lats. Squats to get at your glutes and legs. Bench press to work your chest.

Do we weight train once to accomplish our goals? No. We lift regularly. And we lift intelligently and conscientiously to get the maximum benefit.

Does our weight training dominate our lives? Unless we’re professionals who compete for a living, no. We go to the gym and lift maybe 2–3 days a week and then we go to work or go home and hang out with our families.

The similarities of weight training and mind training

All of this applies to ‘training our minds.’ The one massive difference is that there is nothing more beneficial or more important than training our minds.

How do we train our minds? In other words, what is the work of the spiritual path? I’ve written about this hundreds of times.

Instead of doing curls, squats and rows, we meditate, practice mindfulness and let go of our egoic baggage. There’s also mantra, singing kirtan, qi gong, asana yoga and myriad others.

We need to train regularly

In training our minds, do we meditate once or sporadically? Practice mindfulness now and then? Let go every so often? No. If we want to train our minds, as with weight training, we do all of these practices regularly and conscientiously.

If weight training strengthens our muscles, what does mind training accomplish? It calms, quiets and slows down our racing minds. Over time. And with persistent practice.

As we do so, we come to realize, gradually, over time, that we are not our minds and the thoughts it randomly produces. We are the consciousness that is aware of those thoughts.

Through our training, our minds become less active, which allows us to more strongly identify as our true, conscious selves. That is the spiritual path.

Mind training goes back to the Gita and the Tao

It’s worth noting that this concept of training the mind is not new. Far from it.

The Bhagavad Gita, which many say is the most important text of Hinduism, was written well over 2,000 years ago and directly implicates training the mind as essential to spiritual awakening. Here are just a few relevant passages:

“Make your mind one-pointed in meditation and your heart will be purified.” 6:12

“With senses and mind constantly controlled through meditation, united with the Self within, an aspirant attains nirvana, the state of abiding joy and peace in me (Krishna/God).” 6:15

“Wherever the mind wanders, restless and diffuse in its search for satisfaction without, lead it within; train it to rest in the Self. Abiding joy comes to those who still the mind.” 6:26–27

“It is true that the mind is restless and difficult to control. But it can be conquered through regular practice and detachment.” 6:35

Again, this was written thousands of years ago! An even older book of wisdom, The Tao te Ching, also deals directly with training the mind:

“If you can empty your mind of all thoughts, your heart will embrace the tranquility of peace.” Chapter 16

The point is that restless minds have plagued mankind for many millennia. And really smart, really wise people recognized long ago that working with and training our minds was central to achieving peace inside.

Is training the mind more complex and difficult than buffing up our bods? Yes.

The takeaway

But if we travel the path, i.e., train our minds, with the same kind of dedication to consistency and conscientiousness as training our bodies, it becomes less daunting and overwhelming.

We’re just training our minds. Chopping wood and carrying water.

Hitting the spiritual gym every day. Doing rep after rep. Set after set.

Buffing up our conscious selves as we quiet our minds…

This is my first-ever mini-article. It’s short because it focuses solely on one exercise I want you to try.

The exercise springs from the Ram Dass quote I wrote about a few weeks ago:

“The next message you need is always right where you are.”

His point is that spiritual awakening, like life itself, takes place in the present moment, not while we’re stuck in our thought factory minds.

So here’s an exercise to try: The next time you become aware that you’ve wandered into thought, maybe even pondering the big questions of life, bring yourself back to the present moment.

You could be in your car. Banging out a memo at work. Drinking your breakfast smoothie in the kitchen. Whatever.

Once you’re re-centered, look around, orient yourself in the moment in front of you and say something like this to yourself:

“Okay, I’m in the car/office/kitchen.Right here and right now is where any spiritual messages or growth will come to me.There’s no need to think or ponder or wander off.Because being in this moment is where everything will happen for me.”

The point of this is to give you extra incentive to live in the moment. Because if all the good stuff of life comes from being anchored in the present, isn’t that where we want to be?

I wrote an article earlier this year about why Eckhart Tolle was my favorite spiritual being, but Mickey Singer was my favorite spiritual teacher. The reason Mickey is my fave teacher, in a nutshell, is because he emphasizes the necessity of letting go of our stuff.

We can meditate for thousands of hours, but if we don’t let go, that baggage we all hold inside just sits there…and screws up our lives. Bottom line: Letting go is essential to achieving spiritual awakening.

That being the case, I’m always on the lookout for eloquent, impactful descriptions of this letting go process. My favorite might be one I recently heard Mickey talk about.

Ripples in a pond

It’s about ripples in the water. Imagine you’re sitting next to a completely still pond. Then you throw a rock in it. That disturbance causes ripples.

What is the best way to get those ripples to stop? By jumping in and trying to make them stop? By throwing another rock in the pond?

No. The best way to get the ripples to subside is to do absolutely nothing. Just let the ripples run their course. And they’ll stop.

Ripples in our inner pond

The same holds true for when we experience a disturbance in our inner “pond.” Instead of a rock causing the ripples, it’s a snide comment from your boss. Or you’re at the supermarket and you look at Jennifer Aniston’s perfect body on the cover of People right after you’ve loaded a gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream onto the checkout counter. Or even little things like getting stuck at red lights.

These inner disturbances are all caused by learned experiences from our past. For example, the Jen Aniston disturbance comes from what happened in middle school (an idiotic boy called you fat), high school, college and beyond.

So what is the ‘don’t do anything to the pond’ corollary for us? Let’s stick with the Aniston example.

Don’t throw more rocks in the pond

You look at her on the magazine cover, you look at the ice cream and an awful feeling arises. What you don’t do is throw more rocks in the pond by going to, ‘Screw her. Real women don’t look like that.’ Or ‘Could I be any more of a loser?’

No. What you do is, once you’ve become aware that a feeling of disturbance has arisen, you relax.And then you lean away from the ripples. You sit by the pond and watch the ripples. And you let them pass.

And pass they will. Everything passes. But not if we throw more rocks in the pond or jump in and get involved.

Here’s the thing: Sometimes our hearts don’t feel good. We have stuff inside, it gets stirred and our heart experiences pain. That’s life. And it’s okay. The key?

Let it pass.

It’s not about denying or avoiding these feelings of hurt or disturbance. Quite the contrary; you’re training your attention on them.

You’re just not throwing more rocks in the pond. You’re letting go.

We have to be able to handle it

But in order to watch and not get involved with the ripples, one thing is essential: We have to be able to handle the ripples. What does that mean?

If you absolutely cannot handle seeing Jen Aniston’s perfect body while you buy ice cream, you won’t be able to lean away and watch the ripples. You’ll either try to defend yourself or crumble or defend yourself and then crumble. And that’s the same as throwing more rocks in the pond.

How do we ‘handle it’? It takes using spiritual will and strength.

It’s not easy to watch the ripples

If you’ve had body image issues for decades, that grocery store scenario won’t be easy. But it absolutely can be done. Summon the will to relax behind the disturbance. Breathe with it. Don’t allow yourself to throw rocks in the pond. And let it pass.

When we keep watching the ripples in the pond instead of throwing in more rocks, what eventually happens is these disturbances go away. That trapped energy in our lower being is released.

And we feel better. And better. And better.

The takeaway

If this pond/ripple metaphor resonates with you, I hope you’ll use it the next time one of your inner baggage buttons is pushed.

Just close your eyes, see yourself next to a pond and watch the ripples expand out. Then relax, breathe and watch as the ripples slowly peter out. Let them pass. Let them go.

Finally, a heartfelt thank you to Mickey Singer for yet another beautiful teaching that I want to spread as far and wide as possible.

In a talk he gave in 1986, Ram Dass spoke of a conversation he had with his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, known as Maharaji to his devotees. It went like this:

Ram Dass: How do I get enlightened?

Maharajii: Feed people.

Ram Dass: How do I know God?

Maharajii: Serve people.

Bingo. End of conversation. That’s all we need to know.

I come back to this basic teaching of Maharajii when I feel like I’m getting stuck in my head around spiritual practices whose purpose is to release me from being stuck in my head! In other words, when I catch myself going down the me, me, me road.

“I need to let go of these nervous emotions around the tennis tournaments I’m playing in.”

“I need to concentrate harder during my meditation sessions.”

“I need to work on being more mindful in my daily life.”

What’s the common, dominant word in those three examples: ‘I.’ Yes, that work needs to be done. And ‘I’ am the one who needs to do that work.

Self-absorbed spiritual seekers

But too often, in my estimation, spiritual seekers get consumed by their ‘work.’ “Sorry, can’t hang out with the kids. I need to meditate for an hour.” We become self-absorbed. And if we’re not careful, our spiritual work can become isolating and lead us to avoid the world.

That’s why, in the midst of one of these isolating, me-centric periods, it was so heartening to come across this Ram Dass talk. I felt my entire inner being just relax and say, “Yep. Kind of drifted from the whole purpose of this stuff.”

The purpose of spiritual work

What is that purpose? The purpose is to get quiet inside and shed as much egoic baggage as possible so that our present, conscious selves are strengthened to the point that we can be a force for compassion and good in the world.

The ultimate purpose of spiritual work isn’t to feel wonderful and blissful 24/7, though that can often be the result. That’s just my opinion, but it’s an opinion shared by most of the great luminaries like Ram Dass (of course), Eckhart Tolle, Mickey Singer, and Maharajii (also, of course).

I know this is an obvious truism, but it just feels better to go out and serve others. One of the reasons for this is obvious — when we’re serving others, what we’re NOT doing is sitting around constantly thinking, “What do I want? What can I do for me? Should I get a massage? Grab some sushi? Watch a movie?”

What’s wrong with that? Look no further than basic Buddhism, which tells us that we all suffer and that desire is at the root of it.

My Zen, selfless mom

My mom was the quintessential example of the selfless, serve-others-first person. In my article about her, I stressed that this Zen, selflessness of hers was completely uncalculated and unthought out. It was just who she was. But there is no doubt in my mind that the incredibly good fortune she had in life was payback for all the good she did for others.

But let’s look closer at what Maharajii told Ram Dass. Maharaji says that to become enlightened and to know God, we need simply feed and serve people. Instead of using the two words ‘feed’ and ‘serve,’ he could have used one: Love.

How do we become enlightened? Love others. How do we know God? Love others.

Why is that? Why is love such a big deal? Well, I’m finally realizing that when people say ‘God is love,’ they’re right. Literally. I believe that God is love and love is God.

I’ve always been a fact-based, rational type and I’ll admit right now that, of course, none of this is scientifically provable. But there is one area that amounts to more than just words and faith.

A brilliant white light of love

Near Death Experiences. One of the most common similarities recounted by those who have temporarily died is of being next to a brilliant, white light. These common accounts describe that white light as being an enormously powerful ball of love that made them feel better, by an exponential factor, than they’d ever felt for even a moment of their earthly life. This light communicated to them two main things: 1. That they were loved infinitely more than they could ever imagine, and 2. That everything was going to be okay.

I submit that light is a manifestation of God. And that light’s essence is love.

I further believe that this love is the force that underlies the entirety of the universe.

Love has been central to my best experiences

This all makes sense as I look at my earthly life. In retrospect, I realize that the most authentic, worthwhile, and energizing experiences I’ve had have had love at their core. Not the love pangs I felt when my high school girlfriend sat on my lap at Disneyland back in the day.

I’m talking about the warm feeling we get when we help somebody with something, big or small. Helping an older woman get her luggage down from the overhead bin. Or being there and really listening to a friend who is in crisis. Those are the only experiences that contain any real, lasting energy.

Winning tennis matches, being part of an Emmy-winning writing staff, and getting into a prestigious college. All of those things have infinitely less powerful energy feel to them. Why? Because they have nothing to do with love and everything to do with burgeoning my ego.

The takeaway

So what to take from all of this? Orient your life such that giving love is central. It’s the key to true happiness.

But it’s hard to offer love when we have a boatload of emotional baggage trapped inside and a busy mind that won’t stop tormenting us.

So we focus our work on quieting down inside and letting go of our stuff. How? Meditate and practice mindfulness. And let go. Let go. Let go.

And remember: That love (God) is inside us all. The work of our lives is in accessing it.

The great Indian saint, Yogananda, described this entire path in one beautiful sentence:

“There is a river of love flowing inside you. Find it. Get in it. And drown.”

It’s been hot lately in Newport Beach, California, and throughout the Western United States. How hot? It’s been so hot that Orson Welles has been selling shade. (That’s an old Johnny Carson joke that 95% of you under fifty won’t get…)

It’s been about 90–95 Fahrenheit with considerable humidity. I get it. Any of you from Arizona, Nevada, any state in the South, the Middle East, Near East or Far East, are saying, “Seriously? You think 90 with humidity is some kind of heat wave? Welcome to every day of my summer.”

In my defense, we don’t have air conditioning. I figure why spend all the money for something I need no more than 10–14 days a year?

Complaining in the Gerken household

Suffice it to say, we’re not used to sweating up a storm in our house so this heat and humidity throws us off our game. Lots of complaining. Lots of sighing. Lots of, “Holy crap, could it get any hotter?”

I surmise that many of you reading this are dealing with oppressive heat now or have recently. Here’s how mindfulness can help. The short answer is that dealing with the heat is no different than how we would use mindfulness in myriad other challenging situations.

Jon Kabat Zinn’s mindfulness definition

It’s useful at this point to define what we mean by mindfulness. I like the definition given by Jon Kabat Zinn, the man many consider to be the founder of the mindfulness movement in America. He defines mindfulness as:

“Awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.”

Yes, we all know that mindfulness is about being present for the moments of our lives. But JKZ adds a word that is absolutely critical to spiritual growth: Non-judgmentally. That’s a gamechanger. How?

Let’s use the example this article is about — dealing with the heat. You’re walking around your house or somewhere outdoors and it’s stiflingly hot. You might think you’re being “in the moment” when you notice how hot it is and go right to, “Damn, it’s so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk. Yuck. This is just gross and awful. When is this hellish heat going to go away?”

That is being in the moment. But it’s also judging that moment.

The mindful approach, and what I’ve worked on these past several hot days, is to say, “Wow, it’s hot. Okay. That’s what is.” I’m not saying it’s good and I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m just saying that it is.

The spiritual masters tell us not to tell stories

What Jon Kabat Zinn, Michael Singer, Eckhart Tolle, Ram Dass and yes, even the Buddha, would recommend to all of us mere mortals in this, and every situation life brings us, is to not allow our minds to create stories that judge, complain about or commentate on the present moment.

Any of these stories sound familiar?

“Damn, why does it have to be so hot? I can’t get comfortable in my house and I can’t get comfortable outside. This sucks!”

“That’s the sixth straight red light I’ve hit. This has been quite the unlucky day.”

“She broke up with me. I’ll never be with another woman again. She was right to break up with me. I’m worthless.”

It’s about adding suffering to a challenging situation.

So the most important thing to do when you find yourself wilting in the heat is to limit your misery to just…feeling uncomfortable. Don’t let yourself go off into Complainerville or Whinerland. Catch yourself before going down that rabbit hole and you’ll save yourself a ton of angst.

This is a monumentally vital issue

This is HUGELY important. I’ve written about this primary/secondary pain issue several times. I hope you’ll ingest this idea into your psyche and use it. Accept what is — heat, red lights, breakups — and try to deal with it from a place of non-judgmental presence.

And don’t forget the obvious but powerful mindfulness tool of simply placing attention on your breathing. It’s hot, you’re walking through your house, you notice you’re about to complain so you start watching your breathing. You prevented yourself from going down the rabbit hole. Mission accomplished.For a fantastic account of using your breathing to underpin your mindfulness practice, check out this great article by Don Johnson. He’s the most eloquent writer on Medium on these subjects.

Mickey Singer’s hot weather strategy

I’ll conclude by relating something I’ve heard Mickey Singer say many times. Mickey lives in Florida where it gets legitimately, scaldingly hot.

Here’s what he says when it gets uncomfortably hot:

“I live close enough to a star that I can feel its heat! On a planet that has lakes and mangoes and cars and all kinds of cool things. As far as we know, the trillions of stars, planets and moons in the universe are just a bunch of gas, ice and rock. How lucky are we?”

This is, of course, good old-fashioned positive attitude, something my parents employed to navigate their way through the challenges wrought by the Great Depression and World War II.

Don’t knock it. That positive attitude was the core underpinning for why my parents and others of their time were dubbed The Greatest Generation.

The takeaway

I got off on a few tangents there, but just remember: When it gets really hot, stop yourself from telling stories about how awful it is. Don’t deny that it’s hot. Just accept what is. Then use your breathing to help you stay present.

And thank your lucky stars that our star is situated at just the right distance to sustain life and all the wonders this wacky planet of ours offers…

I wrote an article a few years ago (link) about the very first lines of my favorite book of wisdom, the Tao te Ching. They go like this:

“The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”

The point of the piece was that the higher truths about God/The Tao/Universe/Nature can’t be understood through language or naming things. In other words, trying to use our minds to comprehend the weightier matters of the universe is futile.

How best then to approach these matters? By sensing them.

The purpose of today’s piece is to expand on the topic of transcending language. If this sounds confusing, here are three examples that illustrate what I mean.

Example #1: Meditating on a single word

The example that fueled the idea for this article came from my meditation practice. For many years one of my go-to cues has involved saying a single word in my head. I’d do it in the last part of my meditation sessions, after I’d calmed down into some level of presence.

All it entails is this: I inhale, then on the exhale I say in my head the word ‘still.’ And just keep doing that.

I’ve found that simply saying ‘still’ on each exhale deepens and perpetuates the stillness I’m already feeling.

Sensing the stillness without saying the word

Here’s the wrinkle I’ve added in the past few weeks. Instead of saying ‘still’ on the exhale, I focus solely on sensing the stillness. It’s subtle.

Why is this “better” for me? What does eliminating words/language from my meditation accomplish?

I think it allows me to go deeper. To feel even more still. Why is this? It gets back to those first few lines of the Tao. The naming and speaking of things take us further away from them.

Our souls don’t know the language

It makes sense if you think about it. The soul doesn’t know anything about language or words. We’re born with a spirit that manifests as energy/shakti/chi coursing through our bodies. That spirit is not of the mind. It’s much deeper and stronger than anything the mind can possibly fathom.

But it’s also elusive. And mysterious. If it wasn’t, we’d know the answers to the big questions of life.

Example #2: Near-death experiences with a beautiful white light

That brings me to another example, one that blows my mind. It comes from NDEs (near-death experiences), a subject that I’m shocked doesn’t receive more attention.

You’ve heard of the many common experiences of those who have medically died and come back to life, whether from a heart attack, car accident or any number of causes.

The one that I find most consequential is of those who report being next to a brilliant, white light. That light gives them a feeling of total and complete love and acceptance. It also tells the near-dead not to worry. That everything is going to be okay.

But here’s the catch: These people all say that this white light (God? Who knows?) didn’t actually speak to them. It just somehow communicated the above in a way they couldn’t explain.

That, to me, is the perfect example of how the higher power/higher plane communicates in ways other than language.

Example #3: Movie dates

In my early dating years (high school) I used to take girls to movies. Mostly because I loved movies. Who doesn’t?

But I remember my dad always telling me, “Why do you take a date to the movies? You’re just sitting there in the dark. Go out for dinner where you can talk and get to know each other.”

Well, here’s the thing. I look back and see that two relative strangers watching a movie together felt intimate to me. It was if our souls would come out and get to know each other while our egoic minds stayed out of it. No talking. Just our energies commingling. That’s how it felt to me.

The supposition of this piece, then, is that removing the barrier of language in certain areas of our lives will serve to deepen our connection to this subtle and mysterious higher power.

How can we take that idea and make it useful to us in some practical way? Consider trying this no-language thing in these three situations, and any others that strike your fancy:

1. Meditation: If you meditate and use word cues as part of your practice, try dispensing with the words for part of a session. Sense them without saying them. See how it goes.

I already mentioned the use of ‘still.’ I also frequently use ‘relax’ in the early part of a session when doing the body scan. And of course, ‘neck,’ ‘hand,’ ‘jaw,’ and several other body parts. I’ve been sensing those, too, rather saying the words in my head.

2. Any Beautiful Scene: Let’s say you’re watching an absolutely sublime sunset; pinks, reds, and oranges mingling to form a colorful concoction of natural beauty that knocks your socks off.

Try something different. Resist the temptation of saying to yourself or even somebody who’s watching with you, “Wow, what an amazing sunset! Look at the amalgam of brilliant colors!”

Instead, try following your breath a few times. Then look at the sunset from a place of pure presence. No thought. No words. No describing. No commenting.

Commune with the sunset

Let your conscious presence commune with the sunset. Let the natural you commingle with this other part of nature…the sunset.

Granted, this can be hard. I’m one of those who get excited about things and want to share my thoughts, emotions, and enthusiasm with others. Or with myself if I’m alone.

The problem is that when we do this, we cheat ourselves out of deeper, more profound experiences.

3. Listening to music

When listening to one of your favorite songs, one that transports you to that other realm, try to be there completely. In the moment. Experiencing the sounds of the music with no commentary in your head.

Treat the music like that sublime sunset. Just you and it communing with each other. Dancing with each other. No words. No language. No thinking. No involving the mind.

The takeaway

The key point here is to take the middle man, language, out of certain situations so that the higher power in us can commune with the higher power “out there.” I hope you’ll give it a try.

Thanks for reading and have a great week.

I’ve been writing a lot about Ram Dass lately. I can’t help it. I love the guy.

More important for our purposes, I love his teachings. Most of the spiritual truth/wisdom out there is simple, obvious stuff.

Ram Dass’s unique talent was his ability to convey these simple truths with an eloquence that touches us. That penetrates us. That wakes us up.

I received another of those eloquent wake up pearls in a recent email from Ramdass.org. (I highly recommend going to this site and signing up for these weekly emails. All free, of course.)

Here’s what Ram Dass said:

“The next message you need is always right where you are.”

I love it. So spare. So powerful.

For me, the power of this quote lies in what Ram Dass presumes, correctly, that most people do. And it’s this: We constantly search for our messages, by which he means the truths of our life and for everything, by thinking everything to death in our minds.

“What is truth? What happens when we die? What should I do with my life? Who am I?”

The truth is found in the moment

But what Ram Dass is saying here is that we don’t progress along the spiritual path toward some better understanding of the truth by participating in mental jujitsu 24/7. We progress as far as we’re going to go by simply living in the moment.

Also critical in this quote is Ram Dass’s use of the word ‘always.’ “The next message you need is always right where you are.”

Not sometimes. Always.

What does that mean? That all of our wisdom comes from inhabiting our present moments.

Eckhart Tolle’s central teaching

This is the central emphasis of Eckhart Tolle’s teachings. I’ve listened to scores of Eckhart’s talks and read all his books. And again and again and again and again I’ve heard him say, “Just be present.” Or “Respond from a place of presence.” It’s presence above everything for Eckhart.

How we access and remain in those present moments is a different story. For most of us mortal humans, it’s not easy. Our voracious minds overpower our conscious selves and steal our attention away. Most of the time.

We do spiritual practices to help stay in the moment

So we meditate, practice mindfulness and do all sorts of other spiritual techniques to strengthen our ability to remain present.

Be present. Yes, that’s an obvious, central plank of virtually every spiritual tradition.

But it’s worth focusing on an eloquent expression of this idea with the hope that it sinks deeper into our insides. Because let’s face it, most of us trekking along the spiritual path do spend an inordinate amount of time and energy thinking about and pondering the truths of the universe and our individual place in it.

So a golden nugget like this from Ram Dass reminds me, when I’ve gone down the metaphysical rabbit hole, to come back up…and look around…and reestablish my awareness of what’s happening in the moment in front of me.

The takeaway

And that’s what I hope Ram Dass’s wise words will do for you. That you’ll use them as a reminder that the truth, and the essence of you, comes through living in the present moment.