Breathing Partners

Thomas Aquinas, as sophisticated a theologian as ever lived, came to a point where he didn't so much want to describe or define God and God's ways as he wanted to experience them. At this point in his life he began to put his insights into haiku-like sayings.

Like this one (translated by Daniel Landinsky):

With every breath I extract God. 

And my eyes are a shop 

where I offer him to the world. 

For us God people, this clump of 19 words is perhaps as rich as it gets. If you're not a God person, it's probably worth your while to work with the inherent riches and wisdom here--and translate them into something that works for you.

I was hiking with a Qigong instructor a couple of months ago, and toward the end of the hike the group of us came to a gnarly old red spruce that had a special toughness and beauty about it. She asked if we'd like to do Tree Qigong. We were game--and she gathered us around this old evergreen and taught us very simple movements that respected the tree and literally 'moved' us to become open to its existence and energy (qi or chi translates as energy).

I hike on this trail a lot--have been admiring this old tree for about 40 years. I like having a more engaged way of 'saluting' it.

Her invitation for us to literally embody an openness to its energy got me thinking about photosynthesis--and got me curious enough to start refreshing my memory on how it works. As I Googled 'photosynthesis' a phrase I began to see was 'breathing partners.' Trees (and all green plants) are our 'breathing partners'--ours and all animals. We're not just poetically breathing partners with trees but literally, organically, evolutionarily breathing partners with trees.

With every breath we breathe in the oxygen trees 'breathe' out. With every breath trees breathe in the carbon dioxide we breathe out.

The tiniest sacks of our lungs, our alveoli, are 1/25000 of an inch thick. So thin that our CO2 and trees O2 can each pass through. And just thick enough to keep most other little bits of bacteria, etc., out. The heme in our hemoglobin is such a wise little mule, it knows how to carry O2 down and up and out to each of our cells, let go of it when it gets there, turn to 'embrace' the leftover CO2 in each of those cells, and then carry the CO2 back to our alveoli where it releases it into the biosphere--over and over and over again.

The smallest parts of a leaf's structure, the chloroplasts, perform their own little miracle--with help from the sun. Water (H20), drawn up from the ground into the tree, meets the CO2 taken in from 'us.' Exactly 6 molecules of H2O and 6 of CO2. Then photons from the sun (elementary particles that are little packets of energy that know how to 'interact at long distances!) energize the electrons of all the molecules, making them jump to the new orbits that transform them into new kinds of molecules--exactly 6 oxygen and 6 glucose molecules. The tree 'breathes out' oxygen for us and keeps the sugar for itself!

This is what it means to be breathing partners with trees.

Now when I pass this old spruce (or walk in any wooded place) I'm working to anchor what I've learned biologically so that I also can experience it contemplatively--let my mind and soul absorb what my lungs and blood have been absorbing all along.

We humans are quite literally breathing partners with trees--whether we choose to be conscious of it or not. My experience of life is that it just gets richer and richer when we become more conscious of life's endless ordinary mysteries and miracles.

With every breath trees give us energy for life (oxygen)--and we (and water) give trees the sugar of life (glucose). This little miracle comes with being alive. Aquinas's miracle comes with being even MORE ALIVE (Jesus called it being born again--or being born 'from above').

With every breath we have the potential to 'extract' God--and the ever-renewing potential to share God's Energy, Life's Sweetness, with the world.

We're not alone in this. We are partnered. We are forever receiving life in many ways--and passing it on in ways of our own.

Welcoming With Open Arms

A friend once told me, "You know, the phrase 'Pay attention' is true twice."

I asked him what he meant. He said, "Well, it's true first because paying attention is the only sure way to navigate life. And it's true again because attention is something that has to be paid. You know, it costs something."

Sounded wise to me. Still does.

Our 'presence' to Life starts with being aware, becoming more and more conscious of what's going on. That's not something that happens automatically for us. It takes some work--work we wouldn't do if we didn't value the joy and meaning attentive presence brings to life.

As we do begin to value it, we realize this very appreciation is the currency that 'pays' for it. Our sense of meaning and purpose is what supports the effort to be here now, savoring more and more whatever life brings our way.

Gerald May, in his book The Dark Night of the Soul (which is about Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross), offers broad and deep and wise views on what we're 'buying' with the attention we 'pay' in order to become aware.

He also gets at the richness of balance between effort and rest, work and grace. These next four paragraphs are his.

An often quoted phrase of John of the Cross is “Pure contemplation consists of receiving.” This indeed sounds very passive until one examines it more closely. The Spanish is “Contemplacion pura consiste en recibir.” The meaning of recibir, however, is not a completely passive receptivity, but rather a receiving as one might receive a guest into one’s house. It connotes a welcoming feeling, even a welcoming with open arms. How different the phrase would sound if it were translated “Pure contemplation consists of welcoming with open arms!”

John also speaks of beginning contemplative experience as characterized by “simple, loving awareness.” Again this can sound very passive. The Spanish here is “advertencia amorosa, simple.” The significant term is advertencia, for which “awareness” is a rather tepid translation. In modern Spanish usage, advertencia means “Attention!” in the sense of warning or alarm. John himself explains that advertencia is a very dynamic attentiveness. He likens it to the kind of attentiveness one gives to a dearly loved one or the vigilance of standing alert on a watchtower.

If we can refrain from clinging to the either/or dualism of “God and me,” we can begin to appreciate the more subtle nuances of John and Teresa of Avila’s use of “active” and ‘passive.”  In the more active dimensions of the spiritual life, we have the sense of undertaking practices or disciplines that depend upon our own intentionality and effort. We often also have a sense of success or failure.

As the dark night leads us into more contemplative territory, the feeling of autonomous effort gives way to a greater sense of acceptance, or willingness and welcoming. Goals disappear, to be replaced by simple prayers of desire, and success and failure finally lose their meaning entirely. The experience indeed feels more like “letting go and letting God,” but our own continuing yes remains active, a dynamic and necessary component of a mysterious relationship that surpasses all understanding.

Yes, But Is It True?

I was given a wonderful gift when I was twenty-five. My two best friends patiently, kindly, and firmly showed me what a pain in the butt I could be. It took about three hours.

The three of us were a musical trio. We spent a lot of time together writing, rehearsing, traveling, performing...and arguing. When you write and rehearse together, arguing (contending for what you think sounds best or works best) is inevitable and necessary--it's how you reach a synthesis of the best gifts each person has to offer.

But at that point in my life I wasn't arguing to in order to reach the best synthesis--I was arguing to win: stubbornly, aggressively, and endlessly.

Finally Bob and Brown got so frustrated that they did what amounted to an 'Intervention.' They decided to be just as stubborn as me--yet they also brought the kind of gentle patience and genuine affection that eventually enabled me to trust them enough to let down my defenses and open my heart.

Because I respected both of them a lot, once my mind and heart were open, it was easy to 'take to heart' what they were saying--that because of my relentless attachment to being right, we as a group weren't getting to discover (together) our best potential.

Those three hours with those two friends were a life-changer for me.

Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." I learned two things that day--that the truth can be excruciatingly unwelcome and amazingly helpful at the same time.

Recent psychological research has shown that three things are often helpful for people struggling with 'Life': drugs, cognitive therapy, and meditation. We can try to the last two without a prescription--and they share a common denominator: that truth can set us free.

Where Freudian psychology works by re-telling family traumas over and over in order to better understand our stories, Cognitive therapy works by asking (over and over), "Are these stories true?" Recent research has shown that Freudian therapy doesn't work very well--and Cognitive therapy does.

Bob and Brown taught me the same basic principle at twenty-five. But I didn't know how to consistently work with it until I began to practice meditating. 

Investigating what's true and what's not is a major component of Mindfulness Meditation--watching and listening to what the steady stream of consciousness in each of us is saying, AND asking, discerning, "Is it true?"

When we reach even the most basic level of awareness practice, we begin to see (over and over and over) what our thoughts are endlessly whispering in our inner ears. And without anybody having to nail our butts to the wall we see (over and over and over) that much of what is being said simply IS NOT TRUE.

It's hard to let go of ideas, points of view, preferences, beliefs we accept as true. But it's not nearly as hard to let go of what we've seen for ourselves as false.

Truth sets us free, even when it's disagreeable.

Free is good.

Be Easy with Yourself

One of life's great ironies is that when we finally realize there are things about ourselves that need to change (and finally commit to making those changes) we discover that change is hard and often frustrating and discouraging.

But...it is what it is. And life's ironies can be met with a grimace...or a grin.

We come into the world with certain 'proclivities' anchored in our DNA You like that word, proclivity? It's a word worth learning to like. It comes from Latin roots meaning 'forward' and 'down hill.' To have a proclivity for something means that 'that something' is as easy as walking (or rolling) down hill.

A good few of the things we'd like to change about our selves make up many of our 'proclivities.' They are habits that are as easy to fall into as rolling down hill.

Here's a great 'proclivity' story:

"When is comes to explaining personality, it's always true that nature and nurture work together. But it's also true that nature plays a bigger role than most people realize. Consider the identical twin sisters Daphne and Barbara. Raised outside London, they both left school at the age of fourteen, went to work in local government, met their future husbands at the age of sixteen at local town hall dances, suffered miscarriages at the same time, and then each gave birth to two boys and a girl. They feared many of the same things (blood and heights) and exhibited unusual habits (each drank her coffee cold; each developed the habit of pushing up her nose with the palm of the hand, a gesture they both called "squidging"). None of this may surprise you until you learn that separate families had adopted Daphne and Barbara as infants; neither even knew of the other's existence until they were reunited at the age of forty. When they finally did meet, they were wearing almost identical clothing." (from The Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt)

Daphne and Barbara give us a wonderful glimpse of what we humans are working with (and against) whenever we want to do better, to act differently, to embrace change.

I've posted before how my life changed when an older friend said to me at nineteen, "For somebody so perceptive, you sure can be shallow." Those words--coming from that particularly valued friend--were words that I took to heart. Something in me knew he was right and something in me wanted to change. It felt less like a choice and more like an inevitability. But it's never felt like 'rolling down hill.'

The tension between our commitment to change and the slow process of moral, character, and spiritual transformation is often experienced as frustration. Most of us seem to have a proclivity for impatience and frustration--and self-recrimination!

Smile. Chuckle. Laugh. It is what it is. We are what we are. And yet...there is grace and ability for change. And I'm convinced kindness to ourselves--lovingkindness--oils the mechanism of transformation like nothing else.

Change is slow. Change is even slower when we beat ourselves up about it.

Try this: the next time you get frustrated with the pace of your own transformation, push up on your nose with you palm. Then say to yourself, "Squidging!" Think of Daphne and Barbara. Call to mind the Power of Proclivity. And smile.

Then put your hand over your heart. Give yourself three stout, generous pats. And call to mind that you're engaged in life's most important transformation--learning what love is, how it works in you and how it works in the world.

Smile again--or laugh out loud--life is what it is--and yet you're working with it because you're committed to make it more of what it can be. And that's an amazing thing.

The Secret of Wholeness

Being human is no easy thing. We sense, quite rightly, our capacity to grow, to 'do better,' to 'become more' than we are now. And yet...?

And yet...trying to become the 'more' that we sense is possible can be so very, very frustrating. I'm very grateful for wise spiritual traditions that help us navigate this 'becoming more.' And I'm so grateful for the modern wisdom of biology and psychology that are doing such a good job showing us more and more precisely why this 'becomig more' is so hard.

Jonathan Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis does a great job with this. As I read and re-read it, I often find myself thinking (and smiling) 'No wonder it's so hard!' This comes as a deep-felt recognition--a happy one.

Earlier this morning I read this:

"Because we can see only one little corner of the mind's vast operation, we are surpised when urges, wishes, and temptations emerge, seemingly from nowhere. We make pronouncements, vows, and resolutions, and then are surprised by our own powerlessness to carry them out. We sometimes fall into the view that we are fighting with our unconcious, or id, or our animal self. But really we are the whole thing."


Haidt's entire book is about how the mind works--and how learning how our minds work--and how to work with our minds instead of against them--is the path to happiness.

Whatever wisdom I've learned over the years stands up, does a little a dance and sings out, "Amen," reading his, "We are the whole thing." Our happiness, our peace, our deepest and most sustaining joy come from knowing 'we are the whole thing' and learning how to hold this 'whole thing' wisely. (So far, as far as I can tell, science does a better job than religion at describing this 'whole thing;' and religion--especially in its more contemplative traditions--does a better job training us to work with and embody this wholeness.)

As I often say on this blog, to see how our own minds work we need to observe them. Awareness practices like meditation and contemplative prayer are rich and well-tested ways--the best ways humans have yet found--to discover for ourselves what our minds are up to.

The practice is both simple and challenging. 'All' we have to do is take time to be still and respectifully notice the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that our minds and bodies are 'having.' That's it.

It's like God asks us, "Wanna see something cool?" And we say, "Sure."

Of course, the cool thing God wants us to see doesn't seem all that cool at first. Our minds are a mess! Plus--our attention span is sooooo short.

But (and this is pretty cool) it doesn't take long for our capacity to attend gets stronger. And that's the first step--seeing more and more of the raw material we have to work with... beginning to see this mess more clearly!

One of the first smiles we find in the ancient, sacred process comes from this wonderful and surprising appreciation: "No wonder it's so hard!" The way our brains work is simply that--the way they work.

A little later we begin to get a little more comfortable with the mess and begin to accept it more and say, "So, this is what 'I' contain."

Over time we also become more and more certain of how futile it is to try to get rid of what we contain. How ironic it is to try to deny what we contain. How transforming it is to stop fighting with what we contain. How freeing it is to begin to accept and own it: Yes--We are the whole thing!"

We waste a lot of energy and perpetuate untold pain by arguing with, denying, repressing, and resisting our 'whole' nature. Our 'selves' will always be a mixed bag. Yet they don't have to be a mixed blessing!

"Welcome and entertain them all!" says Rumi.

"You have prepared a table for me in the presence of my enemies," the psalmist says appreciatively to God.

"We are the whole thing," says the psychologist.

Wholeness, says I, is not our better selves all dressed up for the family portrait--it's the whole mess, each scruffy member welcome at the table, listened to, valued, and fed.

15 Things to Give Up

Last week my friend Vic re-posted on FB a list of "15 things to give up." I think it's a great list--and was just about to re-post it 'as is' here when I realized I couldn't quite say grace over some of the explanations that follow the BOLD letters (the original post made it sound a little too easy--doesn't quite fit my own experience of the steady slog that lasting transformation seems to be!).

So...I've tweaked some of it. If you want to read the original, its here, on Purposefairy.com.

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Here is a list of 15 things which, if you give up on them, will make your life a lot easier and much, much happier. We hold on to so many things that cause us a great deal of pain, stress and suffering – and instead of letting them all go, instead of allowing ourselves to be happier and more stress free – we cling to them. Not anymore. Try giving up on things that no longer serve you, and embrace change. Ready? Here we go:

1. GIVE UP YOUR NEED TO ALWAYS BE RIGHT

 There are so many of us who can’t stand the idea of being wrong – wanting to always be right – even at the risk of ending great relationships or causing a great deal of stress and pain, for us and for others. It’s just not worth it. Whenever you feel the ‘urgent’ need to jump into a fight over who is right and who is wrong, ask yourself this question: “Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?”Wayne Dyer. What difference will that make? Is your ego really that big?

2. GIVE UP YOUR NEED FOR CONTROL

Be willing to give up your need to always control everything that happens to you and around you – situations, events, people, etc. Whether they are loved ones, coworkers, or just strangers you meet on the street – just allow them to be. Allow everything and everyone to be just as they are. Do this also for yourself. It’s powerful medicine—both for us and our ‘others’.

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond winning.” Lao Tzu

3. GIVE UP ON BLAME

 Give up on your need to blame others for what you have or don’t have, for what you feel or don’t feel. Stop giving your powers away and start taking responsibility for your life.

4. GIVE UP YOUR SELF-DEFEATING SELF-TALK

 Oh my. How many people are hurting themselves because of their negative, polluted and repetitive self-defeating mindset? Don’t believe everything that your mind is telling you – especially if it’s negative and self-defeating. You are better than that.

“The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.” Eckhart Tolle

5. GIVE UP YOUR LIMITING BELIEFS

about what you can or cannot do, about what is possible or impossible. We have more capacity to grow and change and be happy than we usually trust. Thinking outside the box often leads to significant discoveries outside the box.

6. GIVE UP COMPLAINING

 Give up your constant need to complain about those many, many, maaany things – people, situations, events that make you unhappy, sad and depressed. Nobody can make you unhappy, no situation can make you sad or miserable. It’s our response to others--‘endorsing’ the misery--that makes us suffer. It’s not the situation that triggers those feelings in you, but how you choose to look at it..

7. GIVE UP THE LUXURY OF CRITICISM

Give up your need to criticize things, events or people that are different than you. We are all different, yet we all are also so similar. We all want to be happy, we all want to love and be loved and we all want to be understood. We all want something, and something is wished by us all.

8. GIVE UP YOUR NEED TO IMPRESS OTHERS

Stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not just to make others like you. It doesn’t work this way. The moment we stop trying so hard to be something that we’re not, the moment we take off our masks, the moment we accept and embrace the real ‘us’, we will find people who like us for who we are instead of who we have to remember and pretend to be.

9. GIVE UP YOUR RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

Stasis is good. For living things to be in stasis, it means they’ve found the balance in taking in the new and sloughing off the old. To be unchanging is to be dead.

10. GIVE UP LABELS

 Stop labeling those things, people or events that you don’t understand as being weird or different and try opening your mind, little by little. Minds only work when open. 

11. GIVE UP ON YOUR FEARS

Stop reacting from fear. Instead, listen to what your thoughts and feelings may be advising you to run from and then consciously choose what’s appropriate.

12. GIVE UP YOUR EXCUSES

Both in conversations with our ‘selves’ and with others. Instead of self-Justification, we practice honesty and self-Appreciation.

13. GIVE UP THE PAST

This doesn’t mean ignoring or forgetting our history—but choosing, wisely, how what we’ve learned in the past guides present choices.

14. GIVE UP ATTACHMENT

Attachment is to not let go of certain feelings, thoughts, people, things, etc.—never mind if these things or good bad for us and those around us. A life of attachment means we're lugging around 4 suitcases full of our favorite 'blankies' (security blankets).

15. GIVE UP LIVING YOUR LIFE TO OTHER PEOPLE’S EXPECTATIONS

 “Wisdom calls aloud from the crossroads, the gates to the city, the marketplace.” At least that's the wisdom of Proverbs. Listen to the wisdom that rings truest for you, and move day by day to embody it, and then you’ll be fulfilling your own wise, healthy, and genuine expectations.

Letting Go of Thought (in order to Think)

When we meditate, we're consciously observing our thoughts--and letting them go--over and over and over with a touch (says Pema Chodron) "as light as a feather on a bubble."

But...how does 'awareness practice' work when we need to be thinking?

The following is a helpful snippet from Jack Kornfield's The Wise Heart.

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The point of mindfulness is not to get rid of thought but to learn to see thought skillfully. We need to plan, think, organize, imagine, and create. Considered thoughts are a great gift. When we rest in the heart, then we can use thought wisely....

A professor of mathematics and topography who had come to meditation was worried because his work involved hours of thought. He asked how he could practice meditation while thinking through these complex math problems. Should he try to step back and always be deliberately aware of his thinking? This made him feel self-conscious. It was confusing.

I responded with a simple instruction: "First, check your motivation. Approach the math in a positive and creative way. Then, when thinking about math, just think about the math. If you get competitive and worry about publishing your solution before another colleague, that's not math. If you find yourself thinking about winning the Nobel Prize or the Field Medal, that's not math. Find a skillful motivation. Then do the math and enjoy the creativity of the mind."

The key to wise thought is to sense the energy state behind the thought. If we pay attention, we will notice that certain thoughts are produced by fear and the small sense of self. With them will be clinging, rigidity, unworthiness, defensiveness, aggression, or anxiety. We can sense their effect on the heart and the body. When we notice this suffering, we can relax, breathe, loosen the identification. With this awareness the mind will become more open and malleable.

...Now we can think, imagine, and plan, but from a state of ease and benevolence. It's that simple.