Amita Schmidt

Buddhist and Non-Dual Meditation Teacher

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Waiting for the tsunami

“What are you going to do with your one precious life?”

Rapture, peace, prayer;

or confusion, anger, fear?

Waiting for the tsunami

happens where I live every year.

The earthquake on the other side of the world,

and thousands of miles away

we evacuate for the mountains,

not sure if the harbors, airport, and power station will be left in the morning.

People wait for a long eight hours until the wave comes,

not knowing will it be big or small?

Will it wipe out my home or not?

The way people wait is it’s own education,

in the inevitable.

Some empty the stores of liquor and cigarettes for tailgate parties.

Others listen compulsively to the radio, fear mounting as they prepare supplies for some unknown number of days to live on.

Others chose to pray and meditate and say “I love you.”

No way is the right way.

All God.

Everyone chooses their last moment of grace,

from the bottle, the news, or their one true religion.

I love the differences and have my preference.

“God I offer myself to thee,”

will be my one true offering,

as the water claims her rightful place at the center of things.

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Blessing practice

Our mind is a bit one track when it comes to emotions.  Give your mind anger, and it goes on and on about anger.  Give it something to bless or love, and it does that instead. Point your mind in an emotional direction and that’s essentially it’s direction.  This one track mind can work to your advantage as a channel-changer for difficult emotions.  When I find I am being angry or judgmental, I begin blessing someone, something, anything.  It doesn’t have to be the person I’m upset with.  Heck no, not yet.  But I can say a blessing for the earth, my neighbor’s dog, kids, someone driving by in a car, or anything else in that moment.  And after about three minutes of blessing I don’t really have an interest in going back to the anger.  Ditto if I’m in a car and someone in car in front of me does something that scares or angers me.  Instead of going on and on about the person who cut me off, I send a blessing to someone in another car alongside of me, or behind me.  This focusing on blessing another immediately stops the anger.  It’s not that anger is bad, it’s simply that if given the choice of having anger or having kindness, I prefer the latter.  And blessings can extend to neutral moments as well; the checkout clerk, sitting at a stoplight, waiting for an elevator.  There are always people around you to bless no matter what is happening.

This is a story given to me by the late Father Theophane, a Trappist monk who wrote “Tales of the Magic Monastery.”  This is an unpublished story in his genre of spiritual teaching reflections, and it relates to blessing:

She told me just to sit in the back and bless everyone. That’s what I did. It felt funny at first. Who was I to bless people? But I kept at it. Kept trying different ways. I assumed she’d give me more instructions about how to do it, but no, she never did. And I assumed she’d pass the job to someone else at some point, and give me some serious instructions in meditation. The others all seemed to know how to meditate—they’d sit there so still for hours. All I could do was bless them—one by one.

 I found myself thinking about them—what’s on this one’s mind? What’s that one like? How is he meditating? Is she happy? Judging was there too. Don’t judge—just bless. But some don’t seem to need blessing. That’s judging.

 It’s been so long now. Sometimes I wonder—does anyone know what I am doing? Does anyone appreciate me? Does anyone care? What would it be like to sit up front and do some serious meditating?

 

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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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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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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.