We're offering a lecture and workshop based on the three principles at USF Sarasota-Manatee this week. You can visit the web-site pages describing the series, or you can take a look at the reading material that I put together with my co-presenter, Dick Bozoian.
Very excited about this and many other opportunities to present principle-based work through my new position at USF as Director of the Institute of Public Policy and Leadership.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Friday, December 4, 2009
Pain or suffering?
A colleague of mine used to observe, "Pain is pain. Suffering is thinking about the pain." I always thought that made sense, but it didn't really resonate deep-down with me until I developed chronic arthritis pain. There's really not a whole lot to be done except to exercise regularly and gently, eat right, take good care of oneself, and live with it -- or take very strong medications with scary side effects that give one considerable pause for thought. So I've been seeing for myself what that statement really means.
In order to come to the foreground of my experience, the pain has to be in the foreground of my thinking. It sometimes is. When it rushes to the front of my mind, I notice that I can get really engaged with it very quickly. I start rating it, or wondering if/when it will get worse, or trying to remember before the pain, or regretting the things I can no longer do, or worrying about whether I'll be able to do something I'm planning to do... I could list hundreds of pain-related thoughts, but you get the idea.
But here's the wonderful thing. If I let those thoughts pass and get engaged with, or turn my attention to something else that's interesting to me, the pain recedes. I go about my life, doing what I can do. Then it's not like I'm living free of pain; I am living free of suffering from the pain. The pain is the passing thought, awareness that something isn't quite right in one joint or another. Suffering is all the thinking I do about that thought, especially the negative, frightening thinking.
In no way would I ever suggest to someone with chronic pain that pain isn't "real" or that if they were "high enough," they wouldn't feel it. But now, from real experience, I can truly say that "Pain is pain, and suffering is thinking about the pain."
In order to come to the foreground of my experience, the pain has to be in the foreground of my thinking. It sometimes is. When it rushes to the front of my mind, I notice that I can get really engaged with it very quickly. I start rating it, or wondering if/when it will get worse, or trying to remember before the pain, or regretting the things I can no longer do, or worrying about whether I'll be able to do something I'm planning to do... I could list hundreds of pain-related thoughts, but you get the idea.
But here's the wonderful thing. If I let those thoughts pass and get engaged with, or turn my attention to something else that's interesting to me, the pain recedes. I go about my life, doing what I can do. Then it's not like I'm living free of pain; I am living free of suffering from the pain. The pain is the passing thought, awareness that something isn't quite right in one joint or another. Suffering is all the thinking I do about that thought, especially the negative, frightening thinking.
In no way would I ever suggest to someone with chronic pain that pain isn't "real" or that if they were "high enough," they wouldn't feel it. But now, from real experience, I can truly say that "Pain is pain, and suffering is thinking about the pain."
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Ups and Downs
It seems to me that we all fall prey to the myth that if we only really, truly understood the three Principles, we would never have to go through emotional ups and downs again. That myth truly holds people back because they become so disappointed in themselves when they feel blue, or get angry, or experience disappointment. "Oh, no!" people think. "I'm failing. I don't 'get it'!"
The thing is, the Principles explain life, they don't change life. The difference between the experience of ups and downs for someone who sees the Principles at work is that they are able to say, "So what?" when the blues, or anger, or disappointment crop up in their thinking. They know they're just experiencing a bumpy patch in the road, and if they just keep going and don't focus on the "problems," their thinking will change, as it always does. Thought is a constantly dynamic process; no thoughts can hang around for long unless we willfully hold them in place. And worrying about why we're having them, or what's wrong with us, or how to fix it, is one sure way to hold them in place.
So an understanding of the Principles does not change the content of our thinking; all kinds of thoughts, the ridiculous to the sublime, the disgusting to the divine, will always come and go. An understanding of the Principles changes the way we relate to the content of our thinking. We see that the actual gift of thought is not what thoughts we make up -- although sometimes they're pretty wonderful and they feel like gifts. The actual gift of thought is that we are constantly making up thoughts, and the landscape of our imaginations is ever-changing. Our minds were meant to navigate through life, with all its ups and downs.
I had an old friend call me recently, truly upset that even though she "knew" the Principles, she was having a hard time. "I've lost it," she said. "No," I said. "You haven't lost it. You can't lose what is eternal and spiritual. You've just temporarily lost touch with it. And you're holding yourself back by trying to think yourself out of your bind. Let your mind heal itself. Just leave your thinking alone and give yourself a break."
She called me back a few days later. "I'm fine," she said. "I just needed to stop worrying about why I was feeling low and stop trying to analyze myself. I left it alone. And then it passed."
The thing is, the Principles explain life, they don't change life. The difference between the experience of ups and downs for someone who sees the Principles at work is that they are able to say, "So what?" when the blues, or anger, or disappointment crop up in their thinking. They know they're just experiencing a bumpy patch in the road, and if they just keep going and don't focus on the "problems," their thinking will change, as it always does. Thought is a constantly dynamic process; no thoughts can hang around for long unless we willfully hold them in place. And worrying about why we're having them, or what's wrong with us, or how to fix it, is one sure way to hold them in place.
So an understanding of the Principles does not change the content of our thinking; all kinds of thoughts, the ridiculous to the sublime, the disgusting to the divine, will always come and go. An understanding of the Principles changes the way we relate to the content of our thinking. We see that the actual gift of thought is not what thoughts we make up -- although sometimes they're pretty wonderful and they feel like gifts. The actual gift of thought is that we are constantly making up thoughts, and the landscape of our imaginations is ever-changing. Our minds were meant to navigate through life, with all its ups and downs.
I had an old friend call me recently, truly upset that even though she "knew" the Principles, she was having a hard time. "I've lost it," she said. "No," I said. "You haven't lost it. You can't lose what is eternal and spiritual. You've just temporarily lost touch with it. And you're holding yourself back by trying to think yourself out of your bind. Let your mind heal itself. Just leave your thinking alone and give yourself a break."
She called me back a few days later. "I'm fine," she said. "I just needed to stop worrying about why I was feeling low and stop trying to analyze myself. I left it alone. And then it passed."
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Mind, Consciousness, Thought
Sometimes we shy away from saying the Principles, as though the words might separate listeners or readers from the deep truth they represent. But the words could not be more simple and straightforward. Mind, even without the formal definition provided by Sydney Banks, generates the idea of energy we cannot see or explain, the power that wakes us to life. Consciousness generates the idea of being aware or able to notice or "see" life. Thought generates the recognition that we have ideas going through our heads all the time. Put them together: the energy of life awakens us to the "reality" of our thoughts as we continually create them, using that energy. The remarkable profundity of the Principles is that they are a logic that assures people that what we all see, moment-to-moment, is the life we are creating within our own minds as we respond to life circumstances. We are creating our own thinking about circumstances, and being conscious of that thinking. The Principles are the gift of freedom. We do not live at the mercy of life circumstances. We live as creators of our own experience of them, with the power to change our minds at any time. Imagine how different the daily news would be if more people in the world really, truly knew that.
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