This is probably the most essential heart-centered practice of BEing there is:
BE: We.
I mentioned earlier that this is my birth month — so I’m using this Be practice as a chance to birth new practices of being. Otherwise I don’t celebrate my birthday at all. Why? Because I don’t believe that our births are our beginnings any more than believe that our deaths are our endings. So I decided to stop celebrating an illusion. Instead, I try to pend a quiet day of spiritual reflection and reconnection. So for me, this whole month of spiritual reflection and reconnection is the best gift I could ever have received.
This is what I am spend my birthday month contemplating and reaffirming:
This me I have spent my whole life trying to become is not the real me.
There is no me.
There is only we.
A few years ago, on an airplane somewhere over the North Atlantic, I was praying to feel a sense of release from all the pressures of my life. As I stared out the window into the starry night sky, I heard these words: There is no me. There is only we. The next thing I knew, I actually felt this persona I’d spent my whole life becoming float up from my body and fly out the window into the galaxy. I drifted off into a sweet and dreamless sleep, and when I woke up to the sun rising pink and gold over Europe, I felt a calm freedom and pure joy that I’d never known before.
Since then, I can honestly say the greatest gift of my life has been the increasing realization that all we’re really here to do is to heal that illusory lie of a separate I by practicing Love. Through our heart-centered practice, we reconnect to our True Selves, to each other, to our world, and to the Universe.
Is it easy? HECK NO! It’s hard to give us things that have firmly become entrenched as being I AM.
I am a profession. A family member. A friend. A creative. An entrepreneur. A graduate of. A survivor of. A this or that or the other.
But as I think we’re all seeing right now: THERE IS NO OTHER CHOICE.
One thing that this global crisis has made abundantly clear is that we’re all in this together. When we act in the best interests of ourselves and ourselves only, we’re running around as 7.8 billion little human wills. And we end up. . .well. . .here. We end up here.
The only way to transform this global is to practice being WE.
The Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield writes that when we see ourselves as connected to every other living thing by letting go of the illusions of a separate self, “We find liberation and a spacious joy. Discovering emptiness brings a lightness of heart, flexibility, and an ease that rests in all things. The more solidly we grasp our identity, the more solid our problems become.”
Richard Rohr says that we must be willing to die to our learned selves — to all the power, prestige, privilege, personality that we’ve spend our little lifetimes accumulating before we can discover our True Selves. Our heart-centered selves who see everyone as part of a Whole.
How do we do this? Kornfield shares a wonderful story: “Once I asked a delightful old Sri Lankan meditation master to teach me the essence of Buddhism. He just laughed and said three times, ‘No self, no problem.’”
No self. No problem.
No self. No problem
No self. No problem.
I spent all of last year writing all this in my new book, which comes out next week. It comes out during a month where I can’t go on a book tour, can’t travel for publicity, and bookstores are closed. And yet the timing couldn’t be more perfect! Because everything I spent last year writing about, everything I’ve spent the last decade practicing, is exactly what we need to heal our planet.
And now I get to write a whole month of blogs and record practices that share what is in this book.
When we practice, we shift out of focusing on a problem we have to living as if we are already the solution. We shift of out fear of lack into living Love.
And that’s why this practice can help heal the world. BE: We.
Live as if you are not some separate human will focused on your agenda. You’re not separate and if you believe that your agenda is separate from that of the rest of us and the animals and trees and fish and birds, then this isn’t going get any better.
Live as if every single person on the planet — let me repeat this part, because it’s huge — every single person on the planet NO EXCEPTIONS — is as lovable and deserving of love and life as you. And then send love to them like you would yourself.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Love your neighbor as much as you wish your neighbor would love you. Even if they have a sign up in your front yard that you disagree with. Even if they play loud music. Love them as you wish they would love you.
To BE WE, we have to SEE WE. We have to see ourselves in one another. And we have to practice this every single day.
We’re at the 11th hour here, folks. We need to get cracking on this practice of Living Love. And I won’t lie. If you’ve never practiced living as if there is no I only we, you’re going to get a lot of blowback from your ego, from fear, and from anyone you mention it to. This goes agains everything most of us have been taught. But push has come to shove, so we have to stop pushing and shoving and get loving.
There is no you. There is no me. There is only WE!
And when you start to get this you’re not going to believe what a relief it is.
When I am up in the middle of the night in a panic, when I am worried about anything, this is my go-to practice. Because what that teacher told Jack Kornfield is true:
NO SELF. NO PROBLEM.
So for the sake of our world facing a huge problem, let’s go all in practicing No Self.
I think at this point we can all agree we need to get to No Problem.
BE: We.
Live Love.
#LoveViral
To listen to today’s spoken practice, please click BE WE VIDEO.