I like checking the Skills for Awakening against a variety of other wisdom traditions. What I find, time and again, is that this thoroughly contemporary approach is really the pure practical essence of what the wisdom traditions teach. It represents the practice of the liberation from suffering without all the trappings of foreign cultures and times. It is for us, and it works.

The following is a quote from a Tibetan work, detailing exactly what our Skills approach says: identify the thought or feeling that causes stress and apply the antidote: The Work for thoughts and Open Attention for feelings. Face them, set them free – and as you do, you increasingly build a habit of the opposite positive qualities (here: fearlessness). This is the process of removing obstructions and building the qualities of a pure existence. As you do that, grace will create the deeper transformation of enlightenment. Here is the quote:

Fear and Fearlessness.
Perhaps the first reaction we have to our own suffering is fear. Fear arises in us almost automatically when we experience strong emotions or pain. We don’t have to sit there and generate fear–it just arises. When we experience a disturbing emotion such as jealousy we think, “No, I don’t want this.” We would rather not experience it. However, if we examine fear closely, we see that it is a thought to which we have been habituating our mind for a very long time. We have repeated this thought pattern of fear for many years, and from a Buddhist point of view, many lifetimes.

In just the same way, when we habituate our minds to being fearless, to being brave and open towards our emotions, fearlessness will also arise naturally. In order for this to happen, we must train in applying antidotes to our thought patterns that are caught up in fear. In this way, we transcend fear first through a conceptual process, which later becomes nonconceptual, a natural fearlessness. In order to become fearless in this way, we need determination and the willingness to face our emotions. With that strong determination and courage, fearlessness will arise effortlessly.

–from Trainings in Compassion: Manuals on the Meditation of Avalokiteshvara trans. by Tyler Dewar under the guidance of The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

Life is full of pain sometimes, where do we turn to find some relief?

Look at your fear, depression, anxiety, worry. They are all about the past and the future, are they not?

Now bring your attention to the present moment. Not ‘sort of,’ but really come into the now. Get focused on the breath. Feel it streaming in and out. Then go even closer. Let the mind become very still and pay close attention to every smallest part of each breath. Then, when your attention is truly focused in the Now, look around you. Are you safe right now? Can you handle this moment?

Now where is your pain? Can you find it?

It can’t exist in the Now. Since all pain and fear are about past or future, when you take those away you take away the breeding ground of suffering. In the Now you are free and you have found relief from your suffering.

Practice that again and again and even the strongest suffering will weaken and eventually melt away.

Now it has come again, this sad day. We hear great waves of disturbance around us, as though a stone was thrown into a pond and the ripples are spreading. Intolerance, fear, prejudice and confusion, one follows the other. We see the disturbance in the world and what can we do? How can we not feel helpless in the face of threatened Koran burnings and fanaticism on all sides?

There is much we can do. First of all we can keep our cool. We can notice the shrill voices and perhaps they are not so attractive. And so we can listen to the quiet voice within. What does it say? Where does it guide us?

I think it leads us into the opposite direction of fanaticism, toward peace and compassion. Maybe that is the purpose. Maybe that is the teaching of 9-11.

Okay, I’ll drop the ‘maybe.”

The louder the madness grows, the more obvious is the need for inner peace, for acceptance and an inner safety that can radiate out from us into the world. To find this inner safety and peace is our work.

We have been given much grace. We are not caught in the common delusion of conflict. We have the means to end the internal wars – and this is the all-important step toward how the external wars will end.

On this day I wish you the peace that is the exact opposite of what this day has come to symbolize. It is already within you!

Namaste – Ram Giri

PS: If you live in South Florida, you’re warmly invited to come to our afternoon Seminar on the topic in Key Biscayne (more here: http://skillsforawakening.com/events/)

We were going to examine the thought “Something terrible is going to happen.” And please let me make clear that this is for those who want to find the truth. It’s certainly not for everyone. Most people want to believe what they believe, even though it causes them pain. So if you want to find the truth, this may be for you.

Okay, here comes the inquiry. It consists of 4 questions and the turn-arounds (for more see: http://skillsforawakening.com/solutions/the-work-of-byron-katie-2/)

Here is the first question: “Something terrible is going to happen.” Is that true?

Stop for a moment and go inside. Is there a Yes or a No?

When you have found your answer go to question # 2 - Can you absolutely be certain that it’s true that “Something terrible is going to happen.” Yes or No?

Good. Now let’s go into depth. Question 3: How do you react, what happens, when you believe that “Something terrible is going to happen?”

Spend a moment to really explore how you react when you have this thought. For instance: What feelings arise with that thought? What past or future images do you see? (Close your eyes, see them, feel, relax and observe). How do you treat people when you believe that? What world do you live in with this thought? What addictions or obsessions manifest with it? What other thoughts come up? Take your time to answer this.

And now question #4: Who would you be without the thought: “Something terrible is going to happen?” Close your eyes. Picture yourself without the thought. What is it like? How do you feel? Feel that.

Then one Turn Around: “Nothing terrible is going to happen.“ How is that as true or more true for you? Give yourself 3 or more real examples. Contemplate. Take your time. (Notice if you stay in your business here or not) Make it real for you. Only what’s true for you counts here.

Can you find another Turn Around?

Good. We’ll continue tomorrow.

Let me leave you with a thought by Mark Twain: “The worst things in my life never happened!”

See you tomorrow,

Ram Giri

PS: Please remember if you live in South Florida, come to our afternoon Seminar on the topic in Key Biscayne (more here: http://skillsforawakening.com/events/)

It’s coming around again, this Saturday. Already many people are feeling it – a certain discomfort, anger, perhaps helplessness. And definitely fear. Since 9/11 the thought “Something terrible is going to happen” has become the inaudible but deafening mantra in the collective mind. How is it going to change?

How are we/you going to feel safe again and at peace?

It is up to us, to everyone of us.

Let’s take you, what can you do? Unable to face down bin Laden, what can you do? You can put the internal terrorist out of business.

Let’s talk about that for the rest of the week – and if you live in South Florida, you may want to come to our afternoon Seminar on the topic in Key Biscayne (more here: http://skillsforawakening.com/events/)

So what can you do? You can recognize that

• fear is not caused by outer events
• fear and all other stressful emotions arise as a result of our internal reactions to outer events
• events happen. How we react to them is up to us!
• you can overcome fear by investigating the thoughts that create it
• when you find a deeper truth (which is now hidden by your unquestioned stressful beliefs) the fear dissolves.

This is a simple process AND in practice it can get a bit confusing. That is because it takes us into thinking we are just not yet familiar with. This possible confusion however will give birth to clarity and freedom from fear.

Are you up to it?

I invite you to examine this core thought “Something terrible is going to happen.” We’ll walk with each other through this in the next days, looking for a deeper truth that will set us free of the inner terrorist.

See you tomorrow,

Ram Giri

“Suffering is voluntary and unnecessary. It is created by the mind” In days of old these insights would have been regarded as a secret teaching, accessible only to a select few. To even approach this knowledge you would first have to go through much training and many tests, and only if you were found worthy, you could become an initiate.

But we live in different times. Now millions are learning quickly to live in this new reality. It is a world increasingly free of unnecessary pain, anger and fear and increasingly filled with love.

Yes it’s not yet on CNN because it grows from the grass-roots, person by person. This is how we will change the world. You will do it with us, by changing you, by becoming a bringer of happiness.

But preparation is needed, practice of the new truths will make them familiar to us and will establish us in this new freedom. For this purpose I will offer you in the coming weeks thoughts on the pain body and its dissolution.

May they open to all of us the passage into a world free of pain!

For more: http://skillsforawakening.com/teachings/the-pain-body/

Most of us cannot even relate to this language – ‘Self-Love,’ it sounds like narcissism, like self-indulgence, somehow over the top and too much. And yet, when we look at its pure manifestation, it is the most important quality we can develop.

In truth most of us are rather removed from loving ourselves much of the time. We are in too much tension. We are burdened by conflicts and stress and there is an inner dialogue going on that does not let us relax. We are our worst critics and we rarely give ourselves a break.

If this describes you at least some of the time, ask your self, “How is it working for me?”

It’s a revealing question because it is not judgmental. It just invites an observation, a greater awareness of what works and what doesn’t. And if the way you have been conducting some of your life doesn’t work – change it.

That is where Self-Love comes in. Do you deserve to be happy? Please don’t answer this question so quickly. I know you want to say Yes, but look at your behavior, look at the way you have been treating yourself in those parts of life that are not easy for you: has it been an expression of Self-Love?

Are there areas in your life where you could be kinder to you? Where you could open yourself to a greater love than you have known? Go there. Pay attention to these aspects of your existence. These parts of you are like children starving for love.

You can use this imagery: is there a little boy or girl self in you that has his or her needs not met? This is true for most everyone and usually we try to ignore this inner need. It’s unpleasant to deal with and so we choose to lose ourselves in distractions.

But have you noticed, this inner voice will persist. And it’s better to listen to it now, before it grows a cancer or manifests in some other great conflict that cannot be overlooked.

You have the choice – make it now. There are so many ways to love. But how can you love if your heart is not open to you? Only as much as you love yourself can you love others and allow yourself to be loved.

It starts with a decision we have to repeat often at deeper and deeper levels of our being. A decision to do whatever it takes to gain freedom from the conditioning of old pain. This decision opens the door so we can remove what stands in the way of love, our stressful thoughts and emotions. And as we clear them, this inner well of infinite goodness, the Heart, opens and we can drink from it and its life-giving nectar can flow from us into the world.

We will become a light in this world, an increasingly awakened being, no longer conditioned by the inheritance of fear. Being love leads to giving love and giving love leads to receiving love. And the cycles of stress and fear are transformed into the ability to live and express what we truly are in the core of our being: pure love.

It is beckoning you. Will you listen? Will you do the work of clearing the conditioning of fear that keeps you in stress? Take a step today and another tomorrow and gradually but inevitably you will come to know the infinite source of love in your heart. It is the heart of God, your heart, the pulsing, alive core of your universe. It is calling to you to come to know your true Self.

And how can you do it? Associate with those in whom this flame of love burns brightly. Love and devotion are passed on this way, person to person, in a deep and fulfilling relationship where trust can build and the kind of friendship that can last for life times.

There are teachers like that. Seek them out, for that is the fastest way to get to know you. Love and let yourself be loved and all other things will fall into place. As the sun in your heart rises, all the shadows will dissipate. This sun is already rising.

Fear is the mind killer. It makes us into slaves of all the stressful emotions that spring from fear. It stifles our immune system, which can make us sick and keep us from healing.

The cure for fear is love. Love gives life. Pure, unconditional love is the medicine for what ails us in life. It springs from our spiritual heart.

Pure Love is the best of all drugs. Here is how you can tap into the infinite source of  Love in your Heart.

Enjoy!