Amita Schmidt

Buddhist and Non-Dual Meditation Teacher

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Break the Trance

hooponopono_honi21Times of chaos and fear can create a trance state in each of us.  Last week I got together with some wise older woman healers and we agreed on a daily practice to decrease fear and separation.

To break the trance of fear and pain, look someone in the eye in a sustained and loving way for a few seconds each day.  It could be in a store, or at work, or in your family.  You’ll be surprised at how many strangers are willing to make eye contact.  Everyone is hungry for real connection.  In the right circumstances and with the right people it can also be nourishing to touch the person’s arm.

Peter Levine, Somatic Experiencing therapist, related that when he was in a major car accident, there was one thing that prevented him from going into shock and having Post Traumatic Stress syndrome.  This one thing was that a total stranger came over to his side, made sustained eye contact, and held his hand before the paramedics came.  We are social creatures and eye contact re-regulates and protects our nervous system.  If this kind of connection can re-regulate someone during a severe accident, it can break the trance of fear and separation now.

Since we are all experiencing trauma at this time, please if you can, make some sustained caring eye contact with someone each day.   And, if you can hold someone’s hand please do that too.  This is why we are here. b69f27bb5fd71097f6a6e35545b29eef

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The Chaos Virus

unnamedThe chaos virus is something that takes over individuals, a community, a country, the world. The chaos virus begins when we merge with defensiveness, greed, hatred, and fear.  It becomes a time of division, survival, overwhelm, anger, and not knowing what is true or not true.  It is fueled by the “self” and the illusion of separation. We have forgotten the Whole. We have forgotten interconnection.

You must prepare to be resilient and not get lost in anxiety, confusion, or fear.   In times of chaos it’s about the “how” equally as the “what.”  How do I conduct myself?  You must give life your all even if there are no hope of results.  In chaos there might be no results.  You only have the “how.”  Find your source of true courage and self-lessness.

During this time of chaos, you must also prepare to be spiritually aware, emotionally strong, and grounded in a power greater than yourself.  This power could be love, God, the force of the universe, or some consciousness greater than yourself (scientists are now able to measure consciousness, and they know that it is a continuum and that humans might only be somewhere in range of that continuum). It is a greatly challenging time where we cannot merge with our own personal suffering.   There is something more important, and it is the Whole.  It is the Source.

If the chaos virus goes viral here are some things to remember:

1) Be aware of the chaos virus.  Commit not to get lost in it or come under it’s spell.

2) Ground into your being, and connect fiercely to the deepest version of love that you know.  Hold fast to love.  No matter the storms of hate, or fear, or confusion.  Do not be swayed from the force of love as you know it, in the center of your being.  Love is all you are.  It will bring you back home.  It is all you ever do and are.  Do not be confused by anything else.  You are not pleasure or pain, success or loss, praise or blame.  You are love.  Please trust in this, even if you can’t feel it yet.

12592338_1081727765200263_1431145295415637829_n3) Call constantly upon the wisdom of nature, animals, the sun/moon/stars, the ancient ones/ancestors, chants, ceremonies, spirituality.

4) Do not merge with your thoughts or technology. Use your thoughts and technology as tools only. Your thoughts are not the essence of life. Technology, VR, internet are not reality.  Put down your thoughts. Call upon the Great spirits.  Call upon the Whole.  Call upon your ancestors.

5) Do things that connect, connect, connect.  Music, art, service, family, friends, community, food, gatherings, animals, children, hugs, nature, play. Connection is the doorway to wholeness and away from the disease of self.

6) Cultivate the “we” verses the “I.”  Creating an illusion of a separate self, and then serving this illusion, is part of the virus of chaos.   Develop an awareness of “I.”  Know when you are lost in “I, me and mine” thinking. Move from “I” sight to “We” sight. Start thinking about your life as part of the well-being of all.

stevemccurry7) Become a living prayer.  Make your mind, body, and spirit a constant prayer for all beings.  This is the way to break the illusion of self. Think in terms of the whole world.  Dedicate every thought, every action, every emotion to the well-being of all.

8) Practice deep meditation.  Do retreats.  Dig deep. Soul search.  Know what is most important, no matter what.

9) Stay sober.  Clean up your life.  Stay away from addictions: alcohol, drugs, overeating, internet, consumerism, gambling, workaholism, pornography, gaming, and thought addictions.  You will need a heart that is clean and clear. As things get more chaotic you will see more people getting lost in addictions. Be the person that lights the way rather someone who is lost in the pain.

10) Develop empathy, compassion, kindness, love.  Keep increasing your capacity for these emotions, even as times get difficult.  Do not succumb to the prevailing attitudes of others. Do not be afraid of your own suffering.  Let it fuel for an even more loving heart in yourself.

11) Zen master Bankei’s advice from centuries ago is useful for the chaos virus now:  “Do not sell your unborn nature to fear.”  “See into others’ hearts with your birthless eyes and to sense what is binding them.”  Rest in the Heart.img_0031

 

 

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Return to the Feminine

A few years ago Molokai Kapuna Alexander Pua’a offered this wisdom to me:

“Each of us has a bowl full of light.  We fill this bowl with stones which are the masculine.  We have covered the bowl of our feminine with stones.  There is too much male energy.  We need to return to the feminine and intuitive energy.  Things heal through the feminine.”

How do we do return to the feminine as Kapuna Pua’a suggests?  Both men and women can do this.  Here are some daily practices I have found helpful:

  • Slow down.  There is a Cherokee saying, “As the world speeds up, slow down. The faster things go, the slower you go.” It is through the masculine quality of quickness/speed that we are getting flooded with anxiety, fear, overwhelm, and over-consuming.  Slow your pace down. The feminine is timeless.
  • Acknowledge the Earth.  Each day recognize the ‘aina or Mother Earth, and with a sincere heart say, “I’m sorry” and “I love you.”  In Hawaii this is the practice of ho’oponopono or making things right.  The earth is our very essence and when we honor Mother Earth we honor ourselves.
  • Speak less, connect more.  Mothers regulate their babies through attunement. Attunement is connection through the eyes, the skin, and the heart rate.  Even as adults, whenever we are at arms length from someone our heartbeat attunes to the other person. Get arms length in real time.  Look into someone’s eyes. Touch them. Speak less. Love more.
  • Focused love.  Each day do some silent meditation, prayerful movement, chanting, or focused practice to remember a power greater than yourself.  If you get quiet, you can call upon a much clearer wisdom than your own thinking.
  • Connection through service.  Give loving service to children, elders, your community, animals, ecology, spirituality and the arts. The feminine connects through kindness, healing, creativity, inclusion and love.
Artwork: “Hatching the Universal” by Judy Chicago

 

 

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Worry or Prayer? “Courage is fear that has said it’s prayers.”

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“Courage is fear that has said it’s prayers.” -poet Karle Wilson Baker 1921

Just for today, do you want to focus more on worry or prayer?  I have worked with people who have had so much anxiety they could not ride in planes, cross bridges, shop in major grocery stores, or drive a car.   Through meditation, prayer, and a commitment to not velcro to their anxious thoughts, I have seen these individuals completely turn their lives around. Anything is possible.

Worries have no end point.  You are not your anxiety and worry.  Where will all your anxieties be after you die?  They are not truly who you are. Take a moment and decide, “Enough.  From now on more prayer, less worry.” It takes a conscious commitment one day at a time, until prayer takes over on it’s own. If you want, eventually prayer will take over. Your body and mind are a vehicle for prayer.

When worry comes let it move through, without indulging, fearing, or pushing it away.  Worries are not your fault and not something wrong with you.  Let worries roll through like a big wave. In Hawaii if you get pulled under by a big wave, you roll with it, and in a few minutes the ocean gives you a lull to swim to safety. If my daily worries go into hyper-drive or panic, I remind myself that even panic tends to last less than 5 minutes, and if I can roll with that too, it will move through.   Rainer Maria Rilke advised his students: “Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”

If all else fails, breathe. Breathe into your belly.  What can you trust at your core? When you are on your last breath you will have prayer. If a tragedy happens you will have prayer. Prayer is always here waiting for you, as a friend, a guide, and an eternal resource. A Buddhist friend who died of ALS a few years ago mentioned that meditation was his best friend in the final stages of the disease, and without it he would have crumbled due to the pain.

Find time each day to cultivate your friendship with prayer and meditation. Your prayer might be something as simple as blessing people.  In busy airports or stores if I find I’m getting overwhelmed, I start to bless everyone I see.  This reminds me that each person is someone to love.  Each day I also repeat, “Trust life,” Thy will not my will,” and “I don’t need to be general manager of the Universe.”

Overall, prayer and meditation is how we meet each moment.  Prayer is a willingness to meet each moment with heart.  Ultimately there is no other choice. Start now.  Aloha.

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Back to Basics Spirituality: The Three Injunctions

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The three injunctions were shared with me by Molokai musician and healer, Zelie Duvauchelle. They were given to her by her Hawaiian kumu (teacher). If followed, they will lead you to a connected and joyful life.

  • Make no judgments

  • Make no comparisons

  • Delete the need to understand

As you will notice, these are simple but not easy.

Most judgments and comparisons are the result of the illusion of a separate self. Look at your two hands right now. You probably don’t spend much of your day judging or comparing your left hand to your right hand. This is because you know they are both part of your one body, and judgment would be futile. As you come to know that you are part of the cells of everyone and everything, comparisons too will decrease.

When I first heard, “Delete the need to understand,” my mind did an emotional double-take. Now, I repeat it often like a mantra, or use it like a big eraser when thoughts pile high. This mantra helps me return to silence.  And in those still quiet spaces a greater Knowing can be found.

Enjoy what you discover with these teachings.