a blog by John P. Schuster
Every four years we do an election thing and the cyclicality of the whole, shenanigans and all, is a rhythmic national ritual of affirming our values, our identity, our direction. The shenanigans make us cynical about politics, as if we needed more reasons to get cynical. Remember what Lilly Tomlin said, “No matter how cynical I get, it never seems to be enough.” If we slip, or dive, into the cynical path, there is no[…]
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Einstein was a scientific genius no one doubts. What is lesser known or acknowledged is that he was a wisdom teacher as demonstrated in his hundreds of letters to colleagues and family. Just reading his quotes on imagination and intuition— “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a[…]
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I mention here two books that you might find very useful for your well-being. They are recent but not new, and written by accomplished thinkers. In chronological order. Book 1, Altered Traits (2017): You may have seen the pictures first published in the 90’s—monks with electro encephalograph wires all over their heads measuring their brains during meditation. That was Dr. Richard Davidson at work, in the labs at the University of Wisconsin. A few decades[…]
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This is not any map you know. Forget longitude, forget latitude. Don’t think about the shortest distance or plotting the most direct route… you cannot divine how this path will lead you finally into the labyrinth of your own heart Jan Richardson Summary: When we step back, easing up on our focused seeking, something not seen before steps forward. If our intentions are good, and our aspirations beneficent and inclusive of all, formerly unseen dimensions[…]
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All his life has he looked away to the future, the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Yoda Summary: This may be the most radical practice of the ten practices. Our attempt here is to go beyond the thought patterns that so often create anxiety, “stuckness” and their consequent tensions. So much of this comes from time pressures and how we view the future. We ease up on our constant attention to and[…]
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Everywhere I go the world offers me its busyness. It does not believe I do not want it. Mary Oliver Summary: Many metaphors carry significance and meaning all by themselves, without elaboration. The name of practice 8 is one of them. Numerous positive associations come from this water metaphor—non-resistance, going with the flow, being easy-going and letting go of demands from the smaller thinking, non-aware, self. Here is our homage to the Tao, effortlessness, westernized[…]
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Have compassion for everyone you meet … You do not know what wars are going on down there, where the spirit meets the bone. Lucinda Williams Summary: All the practices urge us to attend here to our mental and heart practices intensely, with vigilance, and way past what is seen as normal, or even reasonable. Our heart training, the giving and receiving of love in all its forms, is usually mixed at best. Parents and[…]
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Living in the gift of every hour Let all that is eternal within me welcome the wonder of this day. John O’Donohue Summary: We develop the habit early on of gaining and getting. We acquire things like food to survive and money to sustain ourselves, and then soon after things like accolades or titles to embellish our self-opinion. Practice #6 is about balancing out this gain/get meta-habit. To go past the acquire-at-all-times mode, we need[…]
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