TEACHING WITHOUT WORDS

Teach without words

To put an idea into words limits it. It restricts the idea to one aspect of itself. People mistake the part that they have a name for, for the whole that they do not. They think that what they perceive, is all there is to be perceived.

They mistake the part for the whole.

As a means of communication, words are fallible. You say one thing; they hear another. People will see in any situation what they have already decided.

That person is just plain lazy. He’s always been that way.

I always get nervous on tests. My mother was exactly the same.

Her problem is, she doesn’t know how to say what she wants.

And on and on. There is no language you can use that will cut through their fears and judgments. They themselves will have to ask for that to happen.

When you assert something in conversation, you also set up a resistance against it. That is just the nature of your reality, what can be apprehended by the five physical senses. Action creates reaction. The more difficult an idea is for people to accept, the more it will draw their ire in defensiveness and ridicule. At the very least, it provokes conversation, and, as we know, talking is not doing.

Let your message be carried in silence and deed

What would that look like?

This would mean a total absence on your part of unsolicited advice, friendly reminders, concerned questions, or any other way you have of getting involved in their business without their asking.

This will render you more silent.

Then let me be rendered a lot more silent. Let me lose the power of telling any other being what I think they should be doing.

Extend this a little further. If you would not tell them what to do in any way, you must also stop commenting on what they do. This is just a veiled form of telling them what to do. Any form of conversation where you discuss, weigh in on, detail your reactions to, or judge the behavior of others, is just a form of trying to use word to control them. And you would forgo that now. If this will make you a bit more silent, embrace that silence.

But what if I want to help them? How can I do that?

That must be in deed, which means your example. Whatever you would have them come to, be that thing. Enlist all the aid of your trillions of cells, to become that thing now, on a cellular level, on a thought level. If you want them to value love more than money, be that. If you want them to be honest with themselves, become that with relation to your Self.

Let me be radically honest with my Self, and dismiss all artifacts, games and finagling of my small self.

The sage can act without effort

and teach without words

Lao Tzu

The Tao Te Ching

DO NOT BE AFRAID

You must not be afraid. There is no reason for this. Fear is weakness and only delays progress, so eschew fear on those grounds alone. Get rid of it, refuse to entertain it one second longer, send it packing.

Remember, all bullies fold under pressure, and crack under contact with the truth. They settle lawsuits and declare bankruptcy. They bend; they choke. Bullies like to play a dominance game with bluster, threats and promises, but when confronted by the truth, they fold. There is no need to be afraid of a bully. If you need training in how to deal with manipulative people, now is always a good time.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself

Franklin Roosevelt, thirty-second president of the United States

The ability to arouse fear in another is a bully’s greatest weapon. Refuse to give it. Refuse to give your fear. The only power a bully has was given him by those who were afraid, and lay down before him. He feeds upon voluntary servitude. There is no need to give it to him.

The constitution is our ultimate arbiter on what is the correct way of proceeding for that more perfect union that the founders envisioned. Now is the time to hew to it. On this we can all agree. Let the constitution be our guide.

That government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth

Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of the United States

Gettysburg Address

OBSERVABLE FACTS

There seems to be a problem of communication here. Sometimes you are using different sets of facts. More often are you using different words to describe the same observable facts. It may feel as if you are partaking of a different reality than some of your neighbors. You start to question up and down, right and wrong, black and white.

You are questioning

Perhaps we could go back to that idea of “observable facts”. Is there an objective reality that we can all independently observe? If we are going to live together in a harmonious way, there must be certain facts that we all agree on. Is it possible to agree on certain basic facts? What are the observable facts?

We already know we might have a hard time agreeing on the “why” of certain facts, with our tendency to get mired in anger and blame. This only keeps us endlessly in the past. Could we rather start with the observable facts, what any two reasonable, independent observers would agree upon.

Examples of observable facts:

There are not enough jobs, in this country and the world, for all the people we have now, and technology is only taking away more.

The wealth of this country, and the world, is apportioned strangely, in a lopsided, unequal way.

Whatever happens to our country, we all wish it to succeed beyond the founders’ dreams, and to maintain the moral power it derives from the constitution.

We wish all our transitions could be gentle.

These are facts we could all agree upon. Let us begin with observable facts, is in essence saying, let us begin with agreement.

Let us begin with agreement

In the past, our acknowledgement of observable facts led us to chasing scapegoats, ever more vehemently, ever more violently. This led us to be always dwelling in the past, raking it over, keeping its resentments and dominance games alive. There is no future in this.

There is no future in dominance games

Or, to put it another way, if you continue to chase the scapegoats of blame, your future will look exactly like your past. Bitter division.

When is the best time to step away from a failed strategy?

Let us begin by agreeing; let us begin with observable facts. If we continue in pragmatism and common sense, with the constitution as our guide, friends, what can stop us?

BIGGER THAN OUR INSTITUTIONS

We are questioning our faith in our institutions. Was the election rigged after all? Should the FBI have gotten involved so close to the end? There were so many hacks this time…foreign trolls…we don’t know who to trust…we don’t trust the media…they didn’t do their job…and so on.

The foundation of faith in our institutions has cracked.

No matter what we think the system is, too many of us feel that we cannot trust it. We think the system is rigged. We feel despair, which spirals outward in anger and fear, horsemen of the apocalypse unleashed.

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Viktor Vasnetsov

Hold that thought a minute

Hold that thought

You are bigger than your institutions. You think of your institutions: the FBI, the electoral college, the Supreme Court, the World Bank, the European Union, and so on, as huge blocky monoliths, pieces in a giant chess game. And this chess game goes back and forth, as any play of power always must. One side dominant, then the other, never resolved, always ongoing.

The only way to win this game is to refuse to play. Realize that you are bigger than your institutions. They only exist with your permission. It is your collective belief, and voluntary servitude to your belief, that gives your institutions what validity they have.

Refuse to play games

But you could just as easily shift your attentions, and create other institutions. What if you created communities of ideas, instead of countries? Commonwealths of love? You could endow them with the qualities you have come to yearn for, by their absence. You could create institutions embodying world order and peace.

Or you could transfer your positive attention to the institutions you already have, and restore honor to them. Bring justice, impartiality, tolerance and fairness to all, back into your institutions. How? By becoming the kind of people to take this as a given.

Or you could go within, where everything originates. Mentally create that country you wish to live in. Need it be a country, as you presently understand that? Not necessarily; it is up to you. What state would you like to live in? Which condition? How is it you wish to feel? What is important to you?

When you have answered these questions for yourself, the questions will be answered for you.

If we can begin to open our perspective and discover new dimensions of space within our immediate experiences, the anxiety and frustration which results from our sense of limitation will automatically be lessened; and we can increase our ability to relate sensitively and effectively to ourselves, to others, and to our environment.

Tarthang Tulku

WITHIN: WHERE CHANGE HAPPENS

The same battles in different contexts

Most people go through life fighting the same battles in different contexts. If you believe you’re basically worthless, this will find form in every context of your life. You might be dealing with relationship problems, or addictions of every kind from shopping, to talking, to oxycodone and everything in between. You might have problems in your work history, unable to get along with other people, or you might have an uncanny instinct to sabotage yourself at the point of success, or you might just have a general apathy about life. You are not surprised when things go wrong.

All of the above are just different contexts for the manifestation, the acting out, of your core belief, “I am basically worthless.” There is an endless array of negative beliefs you cling to, but they’re only different flavors of the core belief, “I am basically worthless.”

You could spend your life, as so many of you do, in trying to rearrange its different contexts. You could seek advice, follow it, you could go to counseling, read a book, confront people, manipulate, ignore, or antagonize them. All these things, and many more, could you do. Read any advice columns to see the myriad of contexts representing core beliefs.

You could make yourself very busy in what you like to call the “real world”, pushing and pulling, rearranging, trying to cause one thing and prevent another. But really, what are you doing with all of this activity? You are distracting yourself. You are looking away.

Away from what?

What compulsive behaviors do you have? Where do you spend a lot of time? What are you avoiding?

Instead of spending all this negative energy trying to rearrange reality, which you cannot do, why not agree to one simple, profound change? Begin with the inner world. Take a few moments to access it now. Breathe in for a slow count of four, hold for five, and exhale for nine. Align your breathing with this new thought: Let me begin with the inner world. Let me go within.

Let me go within

With just one change to your idea of who you are, a change that no one but you can make, you can bring transformative change to every context of your life. Transformative change in relationships, work, play, love, in every context of your life.

Who would not want this?

How may such change be achieved?

Go within, be quiet, create sacred space, be receptive. Simply affirm, “I am valuable beyond measure. God created me like Him, perfect. I am simply perfect.”

People try to get away from it all – to the country, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it anytime you like

By going within

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

PRACTICE PRESENCE

You say someone is emotionally unavailable, as if it were a bad thing.

Might it not also be a good, a necessary thing?

As long as you are emotionally available to other people, you are allowing them to have an input into you. You are making them important. You are in some way trying to please them, or at least get their attention.

Do not try to please anyone. Do not try to get anyone’s attention. Be the same to all. One is not different from another. To believe so is to become the prophet of division. Go not down this road.

What is this about? What are you trying to tell me?

To thine own Self be true. To the extent that you are trying to flatter, or impress, or control, or in any way care about the outcome of another person, to that extent have you given up common cause with your most holy Self, which has always been created, and has no need to flatter, cajole or browbeat anyone, having no needs. You mistake who you are when you try to please.

You mean not to care about the outcome of your own family members?

Not to care means not to be vested in any particular outcome. It is of course possible to love deeply and not be attached to any particular outcome.

What is an outcome but a potential future? If you were to live only in the present moment, with no regard for past or future, no time spent thinking about either one of them, you would be freed from outcomes, would you not? You would be freed from the fertile field of all your fears.

Would you not do this?

I invite you today to the present. What if you, today, were to practice the present moment?

How is this to be done?

In the midst of a routine activity like brushing your teeth, drying your hair, doing dishes, stop, put down all utensils. As slowly as you can count to ten. Doing this creates a space for new thought to come. It enables consciousness. It enables all kinds of good that you yet have no name for, having yet to feel.

One technique practiced fifty times, is better than fifty techniques attempted once.

Let Me Maximize You

Transformational change: the least you need to know