Infinite Smile

The great sage Bodhidharma tells us that "the wise among us" don't attach, and therefore wake up. This Awakening is nothing less than play infused with, and spawned from, the Divine. In this talk Michael points to a map that leads us both to as well as from our soul. The Sufi poet Rumi suggests that activity from our soul is nothing less than joy and living from here is playing with the Divine. Playing with the Divine carries us consciously from our bodies, into our minds, into our souls, arriving AS Spirit. Questions deal with attaching to the love we feel for our own children; what is our relationship to every moment of our experience in relation to craving and avoiding; as well as what the state of enlightenment is and is not.

Eihei Dogen asks us if we can't "find Truth where we are where do we expect to find it". Yet this is difficult to practically apply since usually we live our lives from a position of lack. In this talk Michael suggests that it is this perpetual sense of lack that gets in the way of uncovering Truth. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's Five Stages of Grief are experienced by the ego, however, the minute Truth begins to uncover Itself in our experience. We have to face our lives in ways that lead to the what St. John of the Cross calls "the dark night of the soul". Yet with courage, this dark night gives way to an ever deepening clarity of the radient ever-present love that shows up in the world as the core of all things. Questions deal with a definition of Truth and the constant "flops" and "oopses" of living; how total failure is actually perfection; and the difference between the small will of ego and Big Will of Spirit.

Negativity is merely the resistance to what is happening in this very moment. Despite this, in whatever its form negativity points us toward Awakening. Even in the face of horror and tragedy this teaching offers each of us an opportunity to Awaken. In this talk, Michael suggests that watching our resistance to what is going on in the world with our full attention, helps us move beyond the traps and snares of our inner negativity. From here we begin to see how we are invited home to Infinity on a continual basis. Questions relate to walking with "saintly feet"; letting emotions lack substantiality; memories and stories clouding our present moments; and the reasons behind the birth of egoic separation.

The words of the Buddhist sage Nagarjuna can suggest that the only way for the Ultimate Truth to become significant to us is if we take great care to know the conventional truth. In this talk, Michael points out that Nagarjuna's words suggest that we need to become intimate with all things, especially our enemies, in order to Awaken. This difficult but necessary step is our opening to Spirit. Nietzsche similarly suggests that "once we stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss stares back". Living from and through this point of intimacy with all things opens our hearts and minds consciously to the Infinite. Questions relate to our movement from points of resistance into points of release in our lives; wondering where we are on the Path; and driving our cars as spiritual practice.

So what does it really mean to live in just this very moment? Rumi says that "Past and future veil God from our site", but how do we cut through this veil as we lead contemporary lives? In this talk, Michael suggests that stilling everything that moves offers us a direct path to an experiential relationship with Spirit. Doing this work is something that only we can do for ourselves, however, since no one can ever do it for us. When we fully and consciously give intention to recognizing how we spend our energy in the past and the future we begin to stop identifying with pain and fear. We begin to see that we are neither "not enough" nor "too much". This is Freedom. Questions relate to how we burn the veils that Rumi talks about; dealing with emotion as we meditate; the difference between discriminating awareness of our Infinite Self and judgement of the contracted self; and the role of ambition in our practice.

Despite the fact that the present moment is all that we ever have, we build lives around past wrongs and future wants. In this talk, Michael points toward ways that we can recognize the difference between the contracted, dense, and "heavy self" and the open, vast, and "Infinite Self". From this recognition, our intention in life begins to shift from one to All and the continual revelation of the present moment starts to align itself through our activity. This is the point where we can start to allow the Kosmic Giggle into our lives; a Giggle that knows no opposite. Questions relate to what the work of practice really looks like; and rediscovering the smile of practice.

Ken Wilber has written beautifully on the issue of egoic translation being mistaken for Spiritual transformation. In this talk, Michael suggests a path for each of us that supports transformation. When this authentic transformative practice manifests we find that instead of living our life as a series of translations in the realm of gain and loss, we can live from beyond time and mind as a mysterious, open sharing with all beings. In this open sharing we are no longer blown around, as is said in the Zen tradition, by the Eight Winds of circumstance. Questions relate to the definition of ego and its relationship to translation; working to find stillness; and a testimonial to surrendering to the present circumstance.

Sometimes it can help to look at egoic moves in one of four directions: toward acquisition, toward aversion, toward the past, or toward the future. In this talk, Michael suggests that instead of living our life in this two-dimensionality, we can open to a three-dimensionality, or even multi-dimensionality, once we study our craving and our resistance. Along these lines, Michael discusses the difference between egoic judgment and egoless discriminating awareness. Questions relate to death becoming a teacher; being honest with what is really coming up in just this experience; and how instead of trying to make people more happy we can practice helping each other to become more conscious.

What is the "experiencer", the "seer", or the "Witness" of our experience? In this talk, Michael explains how our attention to our experience, if offered fully, allows for a profound expansion in our consciousness. He suggests, as mentioned in the Lankavatara Sutra, that our awareness of Awareness is another name for our consciousness. Viewing our lives from this Awareness allows all of our negativity and resistance patterns to become less and less significant in our conventional, or normal, experiences. Michael also relates this to Nagarjuna's Two Truths suggesting that our "surfing between" these conventional and Ultimate realms of experience can be difficult. Questions relate to dealing with an inability to comprehend the Dharma; the difference between consciousness and awareness in experience; limited views that see themselves as Ultimate; responding to the teaching that "drinking our green tea we stop the war".

Why meditate? Really. Can't we awaken without stillness? In this talk, Michael suggests that awakening can only happen through stillness because it is only in the still spaces between our thoughts that the present moment can ever be accessed consciously. And it is only in this conscious meeting of our circumstances that we can ever be free of our habitual psychological inertia. He points to the simplicity of seeing and accepting life as it is as well as the various moves that ego makes in order to avoid stillness. Questions relate to practicing in the face of fear; watching the stage play of mind; conscious breathing as a portal to awakening; and labeling our thoughts as a way of lessening their energetic grip on our experience.

What does it mean to have a life oriented around a radical honesty? This occurs spontaneously as we incorporate stillness into our awareness of what is happening in each moment. Michael uses Rainer Maria Rilke's words to start us off on the relationship between beauty and honesty. In this talk, Michael suggests that being clear about what's really going on in body and mind allows us to fearlessly approach all circumstances. And in this fearlessness wisdom evolves through us. Questions relate to our attachment to deeply held moral beliefs; our relationship to the past, the future, and the Now; and consciously meeting whatever arises.

There have been several requests for some guided meditation. Here we have it. Just sit back and relax as Michael talks us from Eterntity to here in about 20 minutes.

Having the courage to authentically engage in a stillness practice means that we are ready to move past our resistance patterns. This is when we can consciously "pop the balloon" that acts as the boundary of the separate self. In this talk, Michael suggests that only a continual, and fearless, commitment to consciously meeting our life will allow for us to get through our residual patterns of clinging. Questions include issues like the relative size of ego and its relative "pop"; signs of resistance; ego's power in this process of renunciation; and the dangers of clinging to imagery.

Mind, or what we might also call ego, can only survive in two places: either in the past or in the future. But what about the space between our thoughts? This openness is what in Zen we call "No Mind". In this talk, Michael suggests that the practice of letting go into, and from, this empty field of No Mind allows for us to source our activity from Spirit. This activity is compassion. Questions deal with what we might do in situations where we feel criticized, and how we can develop a sense of No Mind with consistency.

Letting go of everything, and then acting from this place of radical surrender is the manifestation of Awakening. But how do we do this in practical terms? In this talk, Michael offers us a some pointers on how to practice both surrender and forgiveness in ways that lead each of us to orient our lives around an expansive sense of grace and ease.

If it's all only Spirit, why should we meditate? Couldn't it be that meditation is designed to fail in getting us closer to what's already totally present? In this talk, Michael discusses these questions and suggests how practice unfolds along three stages. Beginning with Recognition, where we are essentially invited to the party, ego fuels our search. Following this, practitioners can often lose their footing when the "dark night of the soul" arises in the phase known as Resistance. Crossing this arid plane, practitioners learn how to commit to an engaged Renunciation where we, and all that arises in our Awareness, are informed by the stillness that we've been practicing. Questions deal with: attempts at kind speech when we feel challenged.

In Buddhist teaching, we refer to the Fourth Noble Truth as the Eightfold Path. Following this Path shows us a map that leads directly to Awakening. But the Path often seems to be covered, metaphorically at least, with banana peels that cause us to slip and fall as we practice. In this talk, Michael discusses how we can walk the Eightfold Path with an intention supported by ethics and stillness even as we tumble. Questions deal with: the continual showing of delusion's veils; attaching to practice instead of being committed to practice; slipping on the banana peels of expectation; the tough work of surrender; having built an entire life on attaching to outcomes; and, how we can get out of our own way as we walk the Path.

Our normal state is intertwined with addiction to ego. Yet addiction to non-addiction is not the goal. In this talk, Michael deals with the middle way of practice in which we begin to uncover our ability to unfold as Spirit in Action for all beings AS all beings. This means that all things are ultimately "just like me". From Emptiness all things are simply one and the same. This expression of deep equality in the world of form means that it is at times an appropriate response to participate in conflict, yet only from the "just like me" recognition. So pacifism, in its true spiritual form, in other words, does not mean that we simply give in to injustice in the world. It means that we "do our duty and remember the Lord" as it is said in the Bhagavad Gita. Questions deal with: recognizing self as other, and dealing with the ebb and flow of our awareness of Big Self and small self orientations.

Meditation is not enough to support an authentic practice. Nor is the reading of scripture. Nor is just listening to Dharma talks. There must be a fire that fuels our meeting of Spirit. In this talk, Michael deals with accessing that very fire. Shunryu Suzuki, Plotinus, and Nisargadatta Maharaj represent Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism in dealing with this apprehension of Spirit. Questions deal with: resistance to sitting; uncovering what we really want; and, our relationship to the "weeds" that can grow as our practice deepens.

What does it mean to meet your life? How is it that we can really show up in the face of everything? In this talk, Michael discusses how the practice of stillness allows for us to transcend our reactivity to life's circumstances in favor of fearlessly opening to all of its possibilities. Rather than life happening "to us", it happens "within our Awareness". This rearranges our usual relationship with our thoughts, feelings, our past, and future.