A Loving Presence

Facing a long prison sentence and feeling alone and lost, I asked what my highest purpose could be. The answer that came to me was so simple, and yet it spoke volumes— “TO BE A LOVING PRESENCE”

It is now years later and I’m still learning deeper meanings of those five words. It has meant…

– Finding beauty in an ugly, barren prison yard
– Finding humor in the absurdities of life
– Seeing the sacredness in every mundane act
– Seeing God in every creature no matter how clever the disguise might be
– Finding the greatest joy in helping others

Serving others helps us to realize that everything we give to them we also give to ourselves. It takes away the veneer that makes us feel that we’re somehow separate from the rest of the world. It breaks through selfishness, it breaks the crust around our hearts.

We came from nowhere to now here and we’re here for a heroic mission. Our purpose has to do with the opposite of getting. We came in with nothing and we leave with nothing. The only thing we can do with our life is give it away.

Love is the purpose, love is the lesson, love is the joy, love is the pain, love is the teacher. What clearly defines that purpose is to ask what we’re doing in our lives right now. Are we willing to be just a little more kind, a little more tender, a little more compassionate? Only in the clarity of true love can we see who we truly always have been, still are, and always will be.

The Circle Dance

When we began our spiritual journey, we may have imagined it to be a linear journey, one that took us over a certain landscape to a far away destination of enlightenment. However, it is better described as a circle that keeps widening and opening our hearts and our consciousness to include all of life as a spiritual whole.

We often speak of being on a path, but in truth, there is no path at all, for that would be to place it into the realm of space and time. The past has disappeared, the future is only imagined, and the present is as fluid as water.

Whenever we touch the timeless reality, we are healed. It may come when we are caught in fear or longing, love or jealousy, or lost in the melodrama of life. Then we will hear our inner voice say, “Hey, you really got caught by that one, didn’t you?” In that moment we laugh and are free.

To awaken is not to fix or hold but to love whatever is here. Knowing this truth releases our hearts from grasping. The mystery that gave us birth becomes a dance…a dance around the circle…a dance in which the dance and the dancer are one.

 

Remembering To Bounce

With the weight of the world on our shoulders, getting off the ground becomes problematic. Our minds have trouble soaring aloft because they are heavy laden with cares, anxieties, worries, and deadlines of one sort or another. These things have a psychological weight that smothers our capacity to imagine and to play. Burdened so, we forget to lighten up, to let our hair down and go lightly through the days and nights. We forget about our wings so our wings forget about us.

However, we can easily arouse the miraculous, the awe inside. One of our finest capacities as human beings is to wonder at ourselves and the world; to bring curiosity, vitality, and bounce to our lives.

Here is an exercise for your “awe muscle,” which is the muscle that makes your jaw drop open in amazement. Often a little reflection on something like the simple fact of your beating heart—a muscle that automatically flexes a few billion times in an average human lifespan and pumps blood through a circulatory system that if laid end to end would stretch all the way around the earth—can completely change your mood.

Being willing to bounce means being willing to be stretched, to expand and take in the enormity of it all—ourselves, the world, the mystery. We belong to the stars in the night sky and to the silence of the wilderness in the darkness. We are made to express ourselves in singing, dancing, studying, learning, working, and playing. We belong to all of this and much more. This is our awe. And it is awesome.

Several years ago, the Dalai Lama was scheduled to speak in Madison Square Garden. After the crowd of thousands was seated, the Dalai Lama entered, walked down the carpet, and climbed the steps to take a seat at the top of the throne. To make the seat comfortable, the organizers had placed mattresses at the top, covered by carpet and silk. When the Dalai Lama sat down on the throne, it bounced. A smile lit his face. He bounced again and smiled some more. Then, in front of thousands of students, he bounced up and down as happily as a child. In the midst of it all, may you also remember to bounce.