River of Yes part 2
“It is still my firm conviction that human nature is essentially compassionate, gentle. That is the predominant feature of human nature. Anger, violence, and aggression may certainly arise, but I think it's on a secondary or more superficial level. In a sense, they arise when we are frustrated in our effort to achieve love and affection. They are not part of our most basic, underlying nature. When we combine a warm heart with knowledge and education we can learn to respect others views and rights. This becomes the basis of a spirit of reconciliation that can be used to overcome aggression and resolve our conflicts”
-Dalai Lama, from The Art of Happiness.
I was a fixer upper. As in, I liked to "fix" myself, I liked to “fix” others. I thought it gave me direction and purpose.
So when I learned through Core Energetics training that the basis of our essence, (what they call the Core), is a vibrating center of love, power, and serenity, basically of GOODNESS, and that was our true self; I was a little shocked.
I had been in the camp of needing to make myself good, always “trying” and always “failing”because there was still a part of me that believed I might actually be bad.
Since I am, however, a willing researcher of energy, consciousness, and somatic sensation, I thought, well I will try this on for size.
“What if who I actually am, my true nature, is an infinite source of love, power and serenity?” I tried it on and noticed the feedback. I focused on resonating with this infinite core in myself and with students, clients, family, friends. (Energy and Somatic work where really helpful with that!) When I felt hard on my self, I did my best to remember...
And what happened was a paradigm shift. Suddenly humanity was on display.
Following this teaching, embodying it, knowing it as Truth (with a capital T,) also means that it is true for everyone. Everyone. Underneath it all, no matter how buried under distortions and fear, it is there. Our spark of life, infinite radiant center, core selves. We do not need to make it; we reveal it.
This brings me back to the pleasure piece from last week. Infusing our life with joy... literally enjoying. Because keeping that glimmer helps us face exactly what we need to face, it brings us through.
A few weeks I had lunch with my friend Jogen Salzberg, who is a meditation coach and zen Buddhist. He and I discovered we were both actively inviting the quality of delight, and shimmering expansion into our work and our lives.
He had noticed in his dharma teaching that austerity and discipline was bringing people so far, but then joy, warmth, and bliss needed to enter for the true enlivening to happen. He spoke so eloquently of it I asked him to share a quote, which he generously agreed to.
“amidst everything else happening in these bodies, bliss is silently purring there, too. we can slow down enough to drink it in.”
And finally I will share this quote, which many of you have heard me reference before:
“Bliss is a necessity, for bliss is expansion. You cannot expand and use your inherent potentials unless you are in a state of joyousness. Expansion and bliss belong together, as stagnation and frustration belong together. “
Be well everyone.
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Landscape of the Pelvis a depth journey of locating, understanding and connecting to the pelvis.
photo by Stephen Miller