How "Polishing the Mirror" Helps You Reflect the Miraculous

Although I'm an avowedly non-violent kind of guy, it's not beyond me to ruthlessly torture a metaphor along with the best (or worst) of 'em, and seeing as this is a session that requires lots of spiritual elbow grease–nearly everyday–you have my permission to cover your eyes. You won't need them to look into this mirror.

"Our life is shaped by our mind, for we become what we think."

                    Buddha, The Dhammapada 1:1

In Zen Buddhism, where meditation is called sitting zazen, they use this marvelous housecleaning metaphor of "polishing the mirror" when they talk about how to think about not–thinking. It's like this: If the way we think is just an incomplete reflection of a greater, more blissful consciousness (based on how healthy our connection to it), then the best way to perceive more of that blissful Source is to do some housecleaning, so to speak—starting with the "inner mirror" that serves as our doorway into the limitless potential of Life.

That mirror stands for the surface of something unfathomably deep that we can only reach by entering our imaginations. In the reflection of Life that we are, we see ourself only on its surface. We'd like to feel more a part of it—to become more a part of it—and sometimes we can momentarily reach into that depth, but we, ourselves, are what's reflecting that profound reality so poorly. All of the fogginess and flaws are a result of own misperceptions; our conscious and subconscious designs. The obscurities are all of our own making.

 So, naturally it stands to reason that if we can improve the quality of the reflector, we'll improve the reflection.

To start that process, we need to sit in stillness and roll up our 'inner sleeves' to ready ourselves for housecleaning. Everything goes better when it's picked up a bit: straightened, inventoried, and organized. Most—if not all—of the mess on the surface of the mirror are simply all the stuff we're thinking about. Thoughts about who we are, about what we don't have, about what we think we should have, about what we think we need to be happy, and what we need to feel whole.

We need to stand back a bit, and clean up our streaky, smudgy thoughts.

"The deluded, imagining trivial things to be vital to life, follow their vain fantasies and never attain [bliss]; but the wise, knowing what is trivial and what is vital, set their thoughts on the goal, and attain [bliss]."

                     Buddha, The Dhammapada, 1:11, 12

In a recent article ("Sitting in the Wilderness," at The Mindful Word.org) I tried to simplify the three "temptations," met and overcome, by both Jesus and The Buddha as they sat and faced their 'devils'—temptations that can stand in quite nicely for the surface-obscuring stuff that clouds our internal mirrors. Simply put, they are:

1) The deep wish to control things to be just the way we want them to be.

2) The superficial, or material, or physical desires we desire to have gratified, and 

3) Our fears – usually having to do with numbers one and two.

 Our fears are the basic filmy schmutz (that's Yiddish) that "as through a glass darkly" obscure our ability to perceive our brightest potential—and they should be the easiest to simply wipe away, seeing as how most of our fears aren't even real. The shadows they cast over the way our daily life appears to us are largely the product of our own negative imaginations. Most of what we fear comes and goes with little or no real consequence, and even when it does impact on our life, it is still only Life, doing what it will do. Usually, we learn our greatest lessons that way, by facing our reflected fears.

Polishing that inner mirror puts us directly in touch with the surface of an ocean of underlying support and serenity. There's a quality of contact with the depth of all that potential that allows us to see through those simple fears to the calm sanity and intelligence that stands behind them, and beneath everything. You gain a purpose that lets you patiently wipe away the default negative inventions that obscure your underlying potential—those feelings that you some how don't measure up, or the resentments you get against others (who are simply doing their best to reflect consciousness too). Just a crumpled-up newspaper, and a little ammonia works wonders.

And then, as long as you're inventing things to think about, invent something wonderful—visualize the miraculous coming true for yourself and others. That ought to lighten up your life quite a bit, and allow you to reflect the sanity that lies at your true Source.

There, in the clarity of that improved reflection, we realize the funhouse mirror distortions our ego causes us to see—the illusion that we're much taller or wider, that our head is so much bigger than everyone else's (when really, we're all just about the same size). It's not the mirror that causes the distortions, it's only our distorted ego. Smooth that surface out flat with a calm, deliberate, repetitive circular motion, until the reflection invites you in— through and beyond your ego illusions. Feel the freedom of becoming that truth that lives beneath your fearful projections.

"To identify consciousness with that which merely reflects consciousness, this is egoism."

                      Patanjali, The Yoga Sutras, II.3

There will always be little surface smudges, and underlying distortions, but the more you experience the sense of transcendent being—that expansion of Consciousness into our deeper dimension of being that occurs when we lose "our self" in the act of polishing, the greater ease you'll experience in every other moment too, and the better you'll feel about reflecting your true potential—which is only limited by your imagination.

With the mirror cleaner, you need never obsess on the flaws again, because you'll see—clearly at last—that your reflection is something of unimaginably great beauty. You are a perfect expression of the greatest, deepest, and most beautiful mystery of all…a perfect expression of Life's Consciousness that all of this world will reflect back to you. 

Sit, and if you "polish the mirror" patiently, soon you'll be able to step right into it, and into a whole new world, where all you need is to simply be who, and what you really are—a remarkable reflection of the miraculous.  

  

Read about this and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it it at your local bookstore!

You Are a Spiritual Donut (Who Wants to Be a "Whole")

Have you ever thought of yourself as a donut? Hmmm, not really...though there have been times when I wanted to eat enough of them to possibly become one myself. I'd like to become a pizza too, occasionally. Becoming a pizza won't do much for you, but becoming a donut, just for a little while, can be instructive – as crazy as it may sound.

Here's how it works: A donut is a mix of elements that generally takes one of a few different, but similar forms. It arrives at its structure through a difficult transformational process. Usually, it gets fried. Constituted of fairly predictable ingredients, surrounded by The Universe, it features a small space in it's middle that contains another little piece of The Universe. A hole. Nothing (or "emptiness," the Buddhists may say), surrounded by more donut.

If you look at the diagram above, you'll see how we're a bit like donuts ourselves. Our outsides, where the glazing is, is our physical interface to the world – our sensory selves. Sticky and delicious. Sticky and unpleasant (with uncomfortable stuff sticking to us). There's everything we feel and sense: hot, cold, pleasure, pain; arising unexpected waves of intense sensation, torporous states of inexplicable numbness; bitter and sweet; an erupting giggle, or a fit of uncontrollable sobbing; some coming from without, some coming from within.

Our sensory selves are our human covering. Our senses. The feelings that arise and dissolve; the physical joys of being human, and the source of our unwanted pains. It's very seductive, even addictive at times. It can also all be rather relentlessly brutal on occasion. But by themselves, these sensations and reactions are not completely, not actually, who we really are.

The inner ingredients of our personal donut consist, in part, of thoughts – like who we think we are, and how we see ourselves in relation to the surrounding Universe. What do I look like? What do I do? How much money I have. Whether I see myself as a success or a failure. Whether I'm happy or not. "T'is the stuff dreams are made of," because an awful lot of it just simply isn't real. It only looks that way to us, maybe not even to anyone else.

It's hard to get perspective on this part of ourselves, probably because our ego mind tends to make us feel so separate, self-contained, and unique – despite the fact that our donut is made from the exact same ingredients as everyone else, arranged in slightly different ways, and is always changing. If we identify ourselves with this "separate," ever-changing, often imaginary self-portrait, filled with inaccurate judgments and comparisons about ourselves and others, the result can be painfully over-indulgent, and lead to  discomfort and "dis-ease."

Did you know that the rich, handsome, successful actor Cary Grant was really a donut? He was heard talking to someone, confessing his profound insecurities, and when the man said, "you don't have anything to worry about, you're Cary Grant!" The actor replied, "I wish I were."

"To identify consciousness with that which merely reflects consciousness – this is egoism."

Patanjali, Yoga Sutras, II. 6.

Our ego keeps wanting us to somehow control The Universe, not to just be a part of it, and in doing so, demands the constant judgments, inventories, and evaluations that further separate and disconnect us from that truth that lies right in our very center, in that eternally grace-filled and easy space that also happens to be made of the same stuff that surrounds us. I'll just call it Love – our authentic Source.

So, in the diagram, I've made that hole in our middle heart-shaped because that's where The Universe, Grace, "God," lives in us, and how it is connected to us. That's who we really are.

Since that's where our Universal Consciousness, our "God Consciousness" lives, when we can unify that  space within with that unifying space that's all around us, we'll become both "hole," and whole. Our donut, and all the misperceptions of "who we really are supposed to be" begin to dissolve, and life becomes much easier and more comfortable as we become the Grace that we're truly meant to live within, and that lives already within us. There's not much there...but there's everything there too.

Besides, we don't really want to be a donut...maybe just the whole in the middle.


Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!

The Nicest Way to Do the Holidays: Smile and Change the World

"None of the means employed to acquire religious merit...has a sixteenth part of the value of loving-kindness. Loving-kindness, which is freedom of the heart, absorbs them all; it glows, it shines, it blazes forth."

The Buddha, Itivuttaka Sutta

That's quite a precise break-down of the power of being nice, don't you think? I wonder how he knew? I tried it out myself at one time and I never looked back, so I'll pass it along to you as something of a challenge: The challenge to show as much sincere kindness as you possibly can to everybody you meet. It's kind of a tall, but not impossible order, and can help quite a lot at this time of year – what with all the demands on your holiday cheer.

Of course The Buddha knew the difference between being spiritual and being religious – that it's a little like comparing apples to Christmas ornaments. Going to church defines you as being a type of "believer," while showing loving-kindness to everyone you meet makes you more of a "practitioner"– after all, in the world we live in you're really less what you look like and think you are, and much more what you actually do and how you behave.

Take this little holiday challenge and try it yourself, from now through the new year, and watch what happens. You'll suddenly find yourself a part of a slightly invisible conspiracy of kindness. Of identification and compassion. Friends you never knew you had will show up everywhere, and then disappear just as beautifully and mysteriously – leaving you with only the one requirement, to continue the chain of kindness.

First you'll be amazed, then you'll wonder, then you'll experiment more intentionally, then you'll probably never go back. It's that remarkably powerful, and will change your world that much. You can't help but be grateful for the really wonderful way people treat you when you show them unconditional loving-kindness. Then you'll find you're happy all the time, because gratitude always precedes happiness.

How does it work so well (sixteen times better...)? Simply because being kind to others takes the focus off of who your (very important) ego thinks you are, and places it on someone else's well-being – which as it turns out is really yours too. It will become easier and easier to show unconditional Love all the time, because Love is all unconditional already – it only becomes conditional when self-importance makes demands of it.

We all want Love and companionship. Compañero. We're all the same person, really. "No we're not!" your ego says, "I'm not at all like Donald Trump!" (God bless 'im) Well, I'm sure that's true, and you may have a bit of a point after all, namely, should everyone get the same lovingly kind treatment, no matter how big of a jerk they are? Well, dammit, ideally yes they should (now that's "tough love"). But if that level of unconditionality is impossible, then let's look for a rule of thumb to go by:

"Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked."

Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, 1.33

So three out of four ain't bad. Just don't pay no mind to the nay-sayers of the world. Better yet, see if you can find some Love in your heart for them, because that's how we will all evolve together. We're all becoming more and more able to share in the medium of Love that actually lives just beneath, swims all around, and courses right through us. It's the solution staring us in the face all the time– that reflected look of a stranger waiting for kindness. Gratitude and compassion are the doors to realizing it in every moment, and when we're kind to everyone we meet, all the time, we open up to this force of evolution that's flooding our plane of existence. We're opening the gates to it for ourselves – and for each other.

"Heaven arms with Compassion those whom it would not see destroyed"

The Tao te Ch'ing, 67

And for you competitive types who may see kindness as something of a disadvantage, kindness is actually a winning strategy. There's lots of people out there who've known it all along, you know, usually the people who are enjoying life, and almost always smiling. Compassion doesn't prevent them from being successful – it enables them to find spiritual realization, which is the real definition of success. To remove the obstacles to Love, and to  expand and grow and flow with Life.  Ho ho ho!

Take my holiday challenge, won't you? Turn your frown upside down and look into the nicest mirror you've ever seen...You might never look back.

Happy Holidays!

Read about concepts like these and much more in: How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near-Death Survivor  from Llewellyn Worldwide available direct on this page, or online. The first book: How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide To Happiness In This World and Beyond is available the same ways – but ask for it at your local bookstore!

The Nice Way to Do the Holidays: Having Fun and Changing Your World

Summer, Winter.....................................................................................Happy Holidays!

"None of the means employed to acquire religious merit...has a sixteenth part of the value of loving-kindness. Loving-kindness, which is freedom of the heart, absorbs them all; it glows, it shines, it blazes forth."

The Buddha, Itivuttaka Sutta

That's quite a precise break-down of the power of being nice, don't you think? I wonder how he knew? I tried it out myself at one time and I never looked back, so I'll pass it along to you as something of a challenge: The challenge to be as nice as you possibly can to everybody you meet. It's kind of a tall order, but not impossible, and can help quite a lot at this time of year – what with all the demands on your holiday cheer.

Of course The Buddha knew the difference between being religious and being spiritual – that it's a little like comparing apples to water. Going to church defines you as being a type of believer, while showing loving-kindness to everyone you meet gets right to the heart of the distinction, namely:

You're not what you believe, you're what you do.

Take this little challenge and try it yourself, from now through the holidays, and watch what happens! You'll suddenly find yourself a part of a slightly invisible conspiracy of kindness; of identification and compassion. Friends you never knew you had will show up ev-erywhere, and then disappear just as beautifully and mysteriously; leaving you with only the one requirement – to continue the chain of kindness.

First you'll be amazed, then you'll wonder, then you'll experiment more intentionally, then you might never go back. It's that powerfully amazing. It will change your world that much. You can't help but be grateful for the wonderful way people treat you when you show them unconditional loving-kindness, and you'll find you're happy all the time, because you have to have gratitude before you can be happy about anything.

How does it work so well (sixteen times better...)? Simply because being kind to others takes the focus off of who Your Ego ("Mr. Big Shot") thinks you are, and places it on someone else's well-being – which as it turns out is really yours too. And it's easy to show unconditional Love all the time, because Love is all unconditional already – it only becomes conditional when Ego begins demanding it. What a kvetch.

We all want Love and companionship. Compañero. We're all the same person, really. "No we're not!" your Ego says, "I'm not at all like Dick Cheney!" (–God Bless 'im). Well, I hope that's true, and you may have a bit of a point after all... should everyone get the same lovingly kind treatment, no matter what? Well, dammit, ideally yes they should (now that's "tough love"). But if that level of unconditionality is im-possible, then let's look for a rule of thumb to go by:

"Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked."

Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, 1.33

So three out of four ain't bad. Just don't pay no mind to Mr. Cheney. Better yet, see if you can find some Love in your heart for him, because that's how we're all evolving. We're all becoming more and more able to share in the medium of Love that actually lives under, around, and through us. It's the solution that staring us in the face all the time. Gratitude and compassion are the doors to realizing it in every moment; and when we're kind to everyone we meet, all the time, we're open to the force of evolution that's flooding our plane of existence. We're opening the gates to it ourselves – each one of us.

"Heaven arms with Compassion those whom it would not see destroyed"

The Tao te Ch'ing, 67

Kindness is a winning strategy. There's lots of people out there who've already known it all along, you know, those smarties who are always smiling. Compassion doesn't save them from physical destruction – it enables them to find spiritual realization. To remove the obstacles to Love, and so to really expand and grow and flow with Life. Ho ho ho!

Take my holiday challenge, won't you? Turn your frown upside down and look into the nicest mirror you've ever seen...You might never look back.

Happy Holidays!

Tales: Are You a Donut Too?

Have you ever thought of yourself as a donut? Hmmm, not really...though there have been times when I wanted to eat enough of them to possibly become one myself. Becoming a donut, just for a little while, can be instructive, as crazy as it may sound.

Here's how it works: A donut is a mix of elements that generally takes one of a few different, but similar forms. It comes into this structural being through a difficult transformational process. In most cases, it gets fried. Constituted of fairly predictable ingredients, surrounded by The Universe, it features a small space in it's middle that contains another little piece of The Universe. A hole. Nothing (or "emptiness," the Buddhists may say), surrounded by more donut.

The ingredients can work delightfully well together, or they can become a bit unpleasant. So the effect can be at times utterly delicious, and at other times a little too much. Laboring the metaphor? Well, bear with me for a moment...maybe a visual will put it over:

If you look at the diagram above, you'll see how we're a bit like donuts ourselves. Our outsides, where the glazing is, is our physical interface to the world – our sensory selves. Sticky and delicious. Sticky and unpleasant (collecting stuff). Everything we feel and sense: hot, cold, pleasure, pain; arising unexpected waves of intense sensation, torporous states of inexplicable numbness; bitter and sweet; an erupting giggle, or a fit of uncontrollable sobbing; some coming from without, some coming from within.

Our sensory selves are our human covering. Our senses. The feelings that arise and dissolve; the physical joys of being human, and the source of our unwanted pains. It's very seductive, even addicting at times, all of it. It can also all be rather relentlessly brutal as well, on occasion. But by themselves, these sensations and reactions are not completely who we are.

The inner ingredients of our personal donut consist, in part, of thoughts, like who we think we are and how we see ourselves in relation to the surrounding Universe. What I look like. What I do. How much money I have. Whether I'm a "success" or a "failure." Whether I'm happy or not. "T'is the stuff dreams are made of," because an awful lot of it just simply isn't real. It only seems that way to us, maybe not even to anyone else.

It's hard to be objective about this part of ourselves, even though this is the Ego part that tends to make us feel so separate and unique; and every single one of us is unique, despite the truth that our donut is made from the exact same ingredients as everyone else, arranged in slightly different ways, and is always changing. Sure, we're unique – all in the very same way. Our Egos make it hard to see how alike we are.

If we identify ourselves with this "separate," ever-changing, often imaginary self-portrait, filled with inaccurate judgments and comparisons about ourselves and others, the result can be painfully over-indulgent, and lead to tremendous discomfort –"dis-ease."

Did you know that the rich, handsome, successful actor Cary Grant was really a donut? He was heard talking to someone, confessing his profound insecurities, and when the man said, "you don't have anything to worry about, you're Cary Grant!" The actor replied, "I wish I were."

"To identify consciousness with that which merely reflects consciousness – this is egoism."

Patanjali, Yoga Sutras, II. 6.

Our Ego keeps wanting us to somehow control The Universe, not to just be a part of it, and in doing so, demands the constant judgments, inventories, and evaluations that further separate and disconnect us from that truth that lies right in our very center, in that eternally grace-filled and easy space that also surrounds us – our true birthright.

In the diagram, I've made that "hole" in our middle heart-shaped because that's where The Universe, Grace, "God" lives in us, and how it is connected to us. That's who we really are.

Since that's where our Universal Consciousness, our "God Consciousness" lives, when we can unify that true space within with that unifying space that's all around us, we'll become both "hole," and whole. Our donut, and all the misperceptions of "who we really are supposed to be" begin to dissolve, and life becomes much easier and more comfortable as we become the Grace that we're truly meant to live within.

Besides, we don't really want to be a donut...maybe just the "whole" in the middle.

Thanks for the inspiration to Eric Jiaju Lee.