Breathe In, Breathe Out, Breathe Easy

Whenever a tragedy occurs, like the earthquake, tsunami and impending nuclear meltdown in Japan, there is a collective grief that hangs in the air.   Everyone feels it.

What do we do in the face of such suffering?

We might turn away.  Or obsess over CNN.  Or feel overwhelmed, guilty, helpless, numb.  We may become more self absorbed as a defense to such enormous grief and then think: "How can I be so obsessed with my little life when there's bigger fish to fry in the universal pan?"

In Buddhism, the first Noble Truth that "life is suffering" is not a proclamation that "life sucks".  It's a truth urging us to be more willing to face suffering squarely.  To really look in to its eyes.  When we practice this, we can handle anything that comes our way.

There is a belief – especially in recent years – that we must think only happy thoughts and to avoid, avert and distract ourselves from what is.  We avoid "bad energy" at all costs and after awhile, we're living like ostriches, with our blindfolded head in the pink sand, believing that this will attract shiny happy things in our lives.  This way of living can actually create more fear.  It can make us live smaller.

And facing suffering, understanding suffering, doesn’t mean being glued to the TV watching horribleimage after horrible image for hours on end.  This, actually, can be a hysterical indulgence after a certain point.

So what do you do?

You could donate to The Red Cross, you could call to make sure friends and relatives are safe, you could organize a benefit.  But beyond this, what the hell do you do in order to understand such suffering on a deep level?  I don't know completely.  But I've been doing Tonglen.

Tonglen is a beautiful practice for suffering.  Basically, you breathe in suffering and you breathe out relief.  You actually relate to suffering, rather than turn away.  Rather than worry and obsess.  Rather than wish things were different. 

The Buddhist path is one of fearlessness.  When you truly feel that nothing in life can touch your inner sense of grace, deep peace and happiness, you become braver in life.  You take risks.  You live bigger.  You're happier.

Funny, that.

So.  What to do in the face of such suffering?  When there is seemingly no compassionate action you can take in the moment?  Try Tonglen.

 

Heart of Bodhicitta:
Get in contact with your open, loving, wise heart.  If you have trouble with this, just think of you at your best.  This heart is from where all your good deeds have ever sprung.  This is a place of spaciousness, wisdom, stillness, clarity, compassion and loving kindness.  A collection of all that is good in you.  Trust me, it’s there.  If you don’t think you have it, borrow someone else’s.  Hell, Angelina Jolie’s will work.  Or Mother Theresa.  Or your great grandma.  But see it as a beautiful orb of light in the center of your chest.  Maybe golden light, or pure white light.  However this resonates with you, get in contact with your heart of bodhicitta, your inherent goodness and compassionate wisdom that is there.  Rest your attention here for a while.  Count to ten breaths.

Breathe In Suffering:
Now see the suffering of another, perhaps a loved one, as a black cloud.  It’s hot and thick.  Breathe this black cloud of suffering in to your spacious, open, loving heart.  Your heart uses it for fuel and…

Breathe Out Relief:
...As you breathe out, exhale relief to those in suffering in the form of this beautiful light from your heart.  Exhale compassion, loving kindness, stillness, expansive clarity and wisdom.  All that is limitless and true in your heart of bodhicitta.  Let these qualities touch and relieve those beings who suffer.

In, suffering, out, relief.  In, blackness, out, light.

We want to not do such a thing, right?  I mean, breathing in suffering?  Are you nuts?  Try it anyway.

Breathe in the suffering of others.  Focus on a single being at first.  Perhaps a woman who has lost her child in the tsunami.  A nuclear plant worker.  A dog who cannot find its master, roaming the devastated shoreline.

Breathe in your own suffering; your own resistance to life, your resistance to your meditation practice, your resistance to washing the dishes after dinner and the fight you always get in to with your loved one about it.

Breathe in the truth of life; that we all have suffering of some kind or another, taking various shapes and forms that are no more and no less suffering.

Breathe out the truth of inherent wisdom, kindness, compassion, spaciousness, stillness, clarity.

Eventually, with this practice, you begin to hold suffering and bodhicitta together, in the palm of the same hand, neither fearing and averting, nor attaching and preferring.  It’s all of it.  Just like life.  

I do Tonglen for myself, for loved ones, for a woman with a suffering face in line at the grocery store.  For my parents, who did the best they could.  For ex boyfriends who didn't do whatever they didn't do.  For those who have caused harm to me.  For those to whom I've caused harm.  For a dear friend who's going through a breakup.  For an entire nation that is ravaged by loss and devastation. 

And I begin to be able to face the un-faceable.  And I begin to know there is something else there alongside all that suffering.

And low and behold I find I can truly handle whatever comes my way more often than not.  This breeds a trust that is always there.  Well, most of the time.   And so I keep practicing.  In and out.   In and out.

True Nature Calls

I’m all about growing and getting better at being human.  Let me clarify: not becoming a better human but getting better at being human.  Because this shit’s hard.  And I think there is an art to it.

I do a lot – I meditate, I’m in therapy, I read spiritual books, I am consciously trying to break patterns and habits that do not serve me or the world.  It’s a full time job.  And some days I just feel like screaming:

"DAMMIT I AM SO SICK OF GROWING AND CHANGING AND EVOLVING AND EXPANDING AND TRANSFORMING AND TRANSCENDING! CAN’T I JUST STAY STUCK?"

So I let myself be stuck and miserable and feel sorry for myself.  And I really let it wash over me.  I’m a method actress, you know.  I get in to it.  I'm that good.  And after about a day of honoring how I feel - which is so important - I think:

"Wow.  This sucks.  This is actually a lot harder than doing it the other way."

So then I go back to growing and changing and evolving and expanding and transforming and transcending.  Which actually feels easier on some level.  Maybe because the Universe is always growing and changing and evolving and expanding and transforming and transcending.  So it must be that when I am, too, I'm in sync.  I am aligned.  I am honoring my true nature.

We're all prone to bad days.  And we're all meant to thrive. 

How Do I Get To Carnegie Hall?

Life is tough.  Often, things don’t go the way we want.  It’s messy, imperfect and unpredictable.  Plus, it’s always changing.  Just when things get comfy and we believe we have some ground under our feet, shit happens.  And we resist it.  That makes things worse.  So this covers at least two “marks of existence”, according to Buddhism: suffering and impermanence.

Oh!  And that suffering and impermanence business I just mentioned is always about ourselves.  Me, me, me.  It’s all about me!  How can I make this about meeeee?  And that, ladies and gentlemen, covers the third and final “mark of existence” known as not self.  In a nutshell, we perceive everything through the lens of self and really, in the largest sense, it’s not about us.

Which brings me to me.  I had a bar show the other night that I want to tell you about.  But before I get back to me (which I can assure I will) let’s just review for a moment those curious three marks of existence, that are the foundation of Buddhist teachings:

Suffering (dukkha)

Impermanence (anicca)

Not-Self (anatta)

You might be thinking: “That’s great, but what does this have to do with me?”  Aha!  Now you’re doing it.  OK, we’re all doing it.

Anyway, I had a bar show the other night.  Bar shows are unpredictable and messy.  There’s usually one or two tables that refuse to shut up and a TV is blaring with some sports game and the patrons who are supposed to be listening to your brilliant comedic rantings are wasted.  Not fun.  At least not for the comics.

There’s an old Catskills style joke that goes like this:

A man on a New York street stopped a passerby, asking:

“How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”

The passerby replied: “Practice, practice, practice.”

A while back, I made the choice to view every challenge in life as an opportunity to practice something.

This came in handy in 2008, when I almost died.  Twice.  I had undiagnosed appendicitis and by the time the doc figured it out, some shit had not just gone down, it had hit the proverbial fan.  A raging infection, two surgeries, ongoing care from a nurse, much pain and uncertainty and four months later, I was finally able to get back to my life. 
 

When the first ghastly pangs of appendicitis started - during my birthday weekend, no less - and nobody could figure out what it was, I remember my inner voice saying stuff like:

"But it's my birthday!"

  

and 

“I wish this wasn’t happening!”

and

"Why me?"

…and then a light bulb went off.  And I relaxed.  This is what’s happening.  Wishing it wasn’t will only compound my suffering.  So surrender.  Which is not resignation, by the way.  Surrender is not giving up, but giving over to whatever situation you find yourself in and meeting it fully.  And I had plenty of opportunity to practice this during the four-month-appendicitis-hell.   Which wasn't so hellish after all, thanks to the practice of surrender.

  

So back to something almost as painful as appendicitis: bar shows!

At the bar show the other night, waiting to go on, I took in the surroundings.  There was a table up front texting and talking, a few tables laughing and enjoying things (thankfully); a large table in back YELLING at each other throughout the entire show and some tables off to the side cheering whoever was winning the game on TV.  And the inner voices inside me were almost winning:

“Oh god, I wish I wasn’t here.  I wish they were listening.  I wish the sound system was louder” and on and on.

Right before I was about to get up on stage, my loving, wonderful, mind-reading boyfriend got up from his chair, whispering to me:

“That’s it.  I’m going to tell them to be quiet.” 

Heart flutters.  My prince!  But I paused a moment as the light bulb went off and I whispered back:

“Thank you, but don't say anything; it’s fine.”  And he got it.  He knows me so well.

I wanted to meet what is and work with it.  That’s the spiritual way of looking at it.  The comic’s way of looking at it?  I love a challenge, it’ll make me better, so bring it on, bitches!!

So I stepped up there and met the moment.  Dealing with TVs on, audience members who had no idea they were audience members and a noise level that rivaled the circus helped me get very present and very creative.  I was relaxed but on my toes. 

I didn’t compound my suffering by wishing it was different.  I practiced surrendering to what is and thus found a place from which to work with the situation.  In resistance, we can’t find that place.  Throughout my set, I picked and chose material that suited the circumstances.  Perhaps not a night to whip out the subtlest and smartest comedy material, but a night for material that would get their attention.  I talked to them.  I called out the situation and made fun of it.  But more than anything, I just worked with what was happening, even though I wanted to hate what was happening.

I kept practicing the release of the desire to make this about me.  My ego wanted to let the circumstances tell me something about my identity, my “self”, even though in a larger sense it really had nothing to do with me.  It was just another show.  Not self.  I wanted to listen to the inner voice that told me I’m a failure for still doing bar shows.  And that because I’m not performing at Carnegie Hall but instead at a place offering $5 baskets of shrimp, there is something terribly, terribly wrong with me, my life and everything I stand for.  But I chose not to go there. Well, not completely.  Practice, practice, practice.  

And finally I practiced releasing attachment to things staying a certain way.  At various points during my set, they were listening instead of watching TV, laughing instead of drunkenly shouting to their friends.  But I accepted it might not stay that way.  Impermanence.  Change is the only constant we have.  I may have their attention now, but I refuse to take it personally or get thrown if two minutes from now they’re back to cheering on Kobe.  Or whoever has the football at the moment.  The Lakers are a football team, right?  Can’t remember.  Anyway, back to me.

Success!  I had a good time, the audience (that was listening) had a good time and miraculously some people who weren’t listening actually listened and even laughed.  Sure, I was proud of myself for meeting a small challenge like this with awareness.  The practice is paying off.  But then I proceeded to get in a fight with my boyfriend on the way home where I said things I wish I hadn’t and generally acted like an asshole. I’m human, what can I say?  We’re all trying to do our best.  Practice, practice, practice.

In every aspect of our lives, practice, practice, practice.  And eventually we will get to Carnegie Hall...whatever that is for each of us.

Distracted Thought...Or Devastatingly Brilliant One?

I teach meditation to a lot of artists, writers, comics, actors.  So I'm often asked what to do if, when you sit to meditate, creative ideas come forward.  Do you treat them as monkey mind and get back to meditating?  Do you sacrifice your day's meditation for the creative flow of ideas?  Do you set the ideas aside, trusting they'll be back later?  Just let them float by and label them as "thoughts"?  Or, in this case, brilliant, creative, innovative, the-world-must-know-of-this thoughts?

 A meditation practice opens you up to your creativity in a way that is astounding.  When we still our mind on a regular basis and "empty out", we then become a channel for inspiration to fill us up on a regular basis.  Suddenly we know exactly what to do with all those thoughts that seem to overflow in our minds.  It's like our mind is a closet that gets a makeover: because we've created some space, we now know just what to do with everything.  Many thoughts we let go of, like a purge to the Goodwill for unwanted thoughts.  Others are seen in a new light and appreciated.  And of course there is now space for new, amazing thoughts.  Except now, perhaps, we choose the thoughts that we let hang around in our closet more wisely.

When I create my most weird and fun and authentic and smart material as a comedian, I've usually meditated earlier.  And I notice my meditation practice gives me the discipline when I sit down to write, to actually write.  So when I sit down to meditate, I meditate.  Well, most of the time. 

Whenever we sit to meditate, the intention is to meditate.  But sometimes, creativity will come forward as soon as we get a little quiet and we may be inspired to get up and have a
creativity/writing/brainstorming session instead of a meditation session.

This is really the practitioner's call. The mind will always find something to take us away from our meditation, something more "important" (the dishes we have to do, that call we need to make, the worries that parade through our mind) and sometimes it can take the form of something noble like a "brilliant idea".

If it's a trickle of creative ideas, trust that they will be there when you finish your sit.  Keep letting them pass by like clouds and bring yourself back to the object of your meditation.  Chances are, if they're worth it, they will be clear and calling to you after the sit.  Really.

Let’s say the ideas are not a trickle but a stream. If you have a strong practice and know the difference between the monkey mind throwing poop at you and true inspiration, open your eyes and jot down some notes.  Keep a pad of paper (I do!) next to your meditation area and with discipline, open your eyes, jot down your notes and then set them aside.  Just as we set aside thoughts when we do certain concentration based meditations, do the same here.

If the creative thoughts are a flood, then perhaps you must get up and devote yourself fully to a creativity session rather than a meditation session.  Let it out!  Let it flow!  Enjoy it!

And then have the discipline to sit back down afterward and actually meditate.  Otherwise your monkey mind will begin to convince you each day, as you sit to meditate, that you have a new brilliant idea that must be attended to immediately.  Or that you MUST get up and Google yourself.  Or finish rearranging your underwear drawer.  And if you get in the habit of always interrupting your meditation session, you won't get very far in your practice.  You may get far in the screenplay and that's great!  But after you honor your flood of creativity and those re-writes on the third act you just immersed yourself in...sit back down before the day is through!  Balance, baby, balance.  And Googling yourself is never as fascinating as you think it's going to be.

Building a meditation practice that works with your creativity, your schedule, your temperament and your style is worth it.  It takes some determination and discipline, but once you're in the zone, it'll inform everything you do in your life.  And it'll be a large part of the reason you're having incredible creative downloads in the first place! (OK, now you can go Google yourself.  You know you want to.)

La Connection

A little over a week ago, I did a gig at The La Quinta Country Club.  La Quinta is an affluent resort town just outside of Palm Springs.  And I was to be the comedy entertainment at a 13 year old’s birthday party. Not for the 13 year olds in attendance – although I do have a joke about how lame 8^th grade is that’s been totally killing since 9^th grade – but for the 13 year olds’ family and family friends in the next room.  I have to say, doing stand up for the kids looked more promising when I first arrived.

 

Let’s just say this was not my demographic.  It was a lot of parents and grandparents.  I would have thought a comic who talks about being a mom would be best for the gig, but hey, I’m not one to turn down some dough in exchange for some dick jokes.  Which brings me to dick jokes.  Not that I really have any.  Comics sometimes like to refer to doing stand up as “telling dick jokes” in an attempt to belittle what we do.  After all, we’re just hired clowns telling dirty jokes, right?

Looking at the crowd, I worried.  These were white, upscale, conservative folks, many over the age of 60.  Again, not my demographic.  How would I connect to them? 

My job as a comic is to connect to people.  Making them laugh is good, too.  But first and foremost, I believe that good stand up is all about connection.  Bringing the room together.  Helping everyone there feel a connection not just to me but to each other.  And those connection moments of “aha!” where we realize we’re not alone in being human, sound like laughter.

The stage was set apart from the audience and the first two rows of tables were empty.  About 50 or 60 audience members sat at the back of the room sipping wine and I stood on a little stage waaaay across the other side of the room.   None of this is conducive to connection, let alone comedy.

I started out testing the waters…the jokes that usually go over well were met with stares and polite chuckles.  There was so much staring.  Ugh.  “TV has ruined peoples’ enjoyment of live events!” I thought.  Or maybe I sucked.  It’s all possible.  I looked at my watch: 2 minutes down, 43 minutes to go.

And I experienced that moment of: “Oh just give up” mixed with “I wish this was different/better/at least not as awful as it is”.  

But by having a meditation practice, I've learned to meet the moment, work with what is and remain curious and determined.  Wishing things were different, feeling bad for myself and resisting what is compounds suffering.  Meet the moment.  So I decided to meet them. 

From now on, I insist on doing comedy flanked by desert landscape paintings.

And by minute 3 I hopped off the stage, walked past the rows of empty tables up to the full tables and began talking to them.  Suddenly they realized they were not at home watching T.V. and sat up straighter, their eyes glinting, perhaps with fear and the chilling thought: “I hope this comic doesn’t talk to me.”  But I did.  And I learned so much!   Paul and Dina have been married a long time and Paul knows her cup size but Dina’s long forgotten it.  Shelly is in her 50s and single and has made a new year’s resolution to meet a man who will remember her cup size.  And Jenny is a saucy 70 + woman with five kids and five grand-kids she adores, all of whom have watched her cup size grow over the years.

By minute 10, there was a sort of cohesiveness to the room; everyone had been seen, acknowledged.  They loosened.  I loosened.  I had thought I needed to keep it clean, given the crowd, but I dropped an F-bomb early on to test the waters.  OK, good.  Now let’s talk about sex.  Aha.  Yep: everyone does it, has done it or wants to do more of it.  Like Shelly, whose new year's resolution involves doing a lot of it.  We’re all joined by relationships - to our spouses, significant others, our families, to each other.  Connection.

Minute 25 and there were still some people holding back and I respected that.  I didn’t get in their face.  I didn’t ask them questions.  But I acknowledged them, included them.  Minute 30 and guards were dropped.  Laughter was coming easily and in my closing 10 minutes I managed to slip in my one, actual dick joke.  I witnessed several people laughing so hard, they were choking on their pinot noir.  There was no more holding back from them.  They were with me.  I was with them.  We were all connected.  They applauded heartily and loudly as I left the stage and I heard a few “woot woot”s coming from the AARP members in the corner. 

Simply put, this was a gig that required “crowd work”.  Call it what you will, but the job got done: connection, laughter.  Laughter, connection.  It was nice.  But what happened next was wonderful.

A man came up to me and excitedly asked for the microphone.  I handed it to him and he jumped up on that little stage.

“Now I want to tell a joke!”  he declared to the crowd and with that, he launched in to a rambling old-school joke.  He finished, looking positively lit up at the laughter in the room.  I sat down in front at an empty table, cheering and applauding.  A woman who had been sitting in the back of the audience came and joined me.

Another person stood up and said: “I want to tell a joke!”  And another.   And another.  Laughter, applause, connection.  These fledgling comics beamed.

A man grabbed the mic to tell his joke and he nervously began, “So a teacher ---“  but he stopped.   “Oh no."  He whispered.  "I’m so nervous, I forgot.”  

“Take a breath and trust that you know it."  I called out from the front row. "Take your time!  We’ll wait!”  He looked down at the ground, took a breath and his head popped up:

“So a teacher was in the classroom one day—“  

He turned to me in disbelief and delight and said:  “It worked!”  

And like a comic on his way to being pro he turned back to the crowd and reveled in finishing the joke.

And this kept going.  There were punch lines we had heard before, stories that were silly, jokes that were so old they were around way before Sally was born.  The mic was like a torch being passed to everyone. Maybe I brought them together.  Maybe I inspired them.  Or maybe after witnessing my 45 minutes they thought: ”Hell, I can do that”.  It doesn't matter what started it!  What mattered was that it was happening. Something had been kindled and fanned and flamed and now it was being tended to.  I was touched.  And if I had anything at all to do with it, then I had done my real job.  Not the "front" job I have, that of making people laugh, but my real job: connection.

It was getting late and I finally started to leave right after a woman got up and sang something so pretty it brought tears to my eyes.  And as I slipped out the door, paycheck in hand, I looked back at all of them, the people who I labeled “not my demographic.”  They looked so different now than they did before.  And I realized: we’re all each others’ demographic simply because we’re human.  There is so much that connects us.  And connection is what we crave.  As well as the occasional good dick joke. 

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Faith, Determination and That Monkey Mind of Mine

I posted a blog on 2/14 about how moving toward a goal is often like a drive to the beach.  If you know that's where you want to go, start heading West!

A fellow meditator asked me a question after reading that blog:

" Your 'drive to the beach' reminds me a bit of my rambling and distracting mind when I meditate sometimes. I start on the object: "the beach" and then find myself wandering off...
[What do I do] when my willy nilly mind gets the best of me?"

Great question!  Working with the distracted mind can sometimes lead to dullness in our practice and a mechanical approach.  We know we're to bring ourselves back to the object of our meditation each time we wander off.  But sometimes we’re simply going through the motions each time we pull our attention back over and over. We’re doing it by rote, but we don’t really have enough interest in the object of our meditation to want to stay there in the first place.  Here’s where faith and determination come in.

And here’s where I switch analogies away from “the beach” for a minute.  Our mind is like a very small child who wants to wander in to the busy, colorful street.  We have her by the hand and each time she pulls toward the street or takes a step in to the street, we lovingly yet firmly pull her back.  We do this not just because we love her and want the best for her, but because we have faith that this action is actually building toward something.  Each time we lovingly yet firmly pull her back she is gaining an awareness, a habit, a sense of the larger picture.  And some day she will know to do this on her own.  We have faith in this small action that is taken over and over and over again.  And our determination is fueled by this faith.  And we must have determination to build a strong meditation practice. 

In my classes, I talk about having “interested determination” in your practice.  Take an interest in the object of your meditation (the breath, an orb of light) and summon your determination to be there.  Let there be faith that the mere action of continuing to bring yourself back time and again is enough.  Not getting to some vast spacious place of bliss.  But the mere action of bringing yourself back over and over is perhaps – maybe at least for today’s meditation – what it’s all about.  Pulling that small child back from the busy street is no action taken in vain.

I recommend bearing in mind the above before all else.  But some days we're just off the object more than we're on and we want to just leave the child at home!  

So...back to the beach analogy.  I look at it this way: the “beach” is a strong meditation practice.  The "road" is whichever practice we've chosen to do.  There are many roads that lead to a strong practice.  So if you’ve been doing, say, Shamatha (mindfulness with breathing, where the object is the breath) for several weeks in a row and perhaps today and yesterday and the day before you were off more than you were on, then maybe it’s time to invest in a new practice for a time. Take a small street.  Hop on the freeway.  But get on a different road.

When I have an unusually distracted mind, I do Tonglen.  I visualize my heart as a golden, glowing orb of light and home to Bodhicitta.  Bodhicitta is any compassion, loving kindness, awakened, enlightened part of my being that exists.  And if I’m having a crappy day and don’t believe any of that stuff exists in or on or around me, I summon my faith.  I have faith that I have some sliver of Bodhicitta within me and I see it as a golden orb of light in my chest.  

 

And then I see – as a black cloud - my distraction, my resistance (to the practice), my doubts (in the practice and myself) and my worries (about everything).  I breathe this black cloud in to my heart and my heart uses it as fuel.  My heart gets bigger, brighter, warmer and as I breathe out, this light and warmth spreads throughout my body.   I don’t try to analyze or figure out the contents of this black cloud of fear, doubt, worry, resistance, distraction and all-around suffering.  I simply breathe it in.  It fuels my heart.  Then I do this for others, sending the heart of Bodhicitta out to all beings.  I breathe in others pain and suffering and at some point, there doesn’t seem to be any difference between Bodhicitta and suffering.  And I enjoy this dance of everything, allowing for everything to be a part of my practice. 

Luckily the visualization and the fact that this is a moving mind meditation keep my monkey mind occupied.  Sometimes we have to throw the monkey mind a banana.  And Tonglen is one potent and nourishing banana for our whole being.

Whenever we switch to a new practice, it’s usually a good idea to commit to doing it for at least ten days.  Otherwise, our wiley self (ego) can convince us that this isn’t the right practice for us…or this one…or this one… or this one…and then the bell rings and our meditation session is over.  Oh, you rascally ego!

So maybe Tonglen is your practice for a little while.  In the meantime, you and your monkey mind...and perhaps all beings...have been nourished.  And we all need a snack on the way to the beach.

Start Heading West

I have a friend and student whose talented work is wonderful and should be seen by the masses!  But she gets stuck for periods of time.  Maybe because getting there seems like too much work.   Or too confusing.  Or maybe because she, too, knows her work should be seen by the masses yet she is overwhelmed by the thought of all the small, humbling steps that can lead her there.  And boy, those humbling steps are no fun sometimes to our dear, sweet ego.  Gulp.

I see life as a dance of stillness and action.  Every moment is filled with both - call it form and emptiness if you will - and any success, large or small, is woven of this.

 As a meditation teacher, I champion stillness: finding moments of it in your busy life, setting aside time to embrace it regularly, getting comfortable with the vast expanse of what seems-like-nothing-going-on as you sit on the cushion and follow your breath.  And we know by now that stillness is a close friend of emptiness and that emptiness is the womb of all creativity.  So to embrace that emptiness is to really get behind yourself in creating something incredible that you haven't even dreamed of yet.  Getting friendly with emptiness and stillness can feel like a challenge, but luckily there is action we can take toward this: meditation!  Meditation itself is a dance of action and stillness.  You are engaged in active attention resting on the breath - the object - while allowing your mind to slowly still.  Action, stillness, action, stillness happening simultaneously.  That's "nutshelling" it a bit.  But you get it.

Maybe the action this little guy needs to take is a nap.

To experience our dreams taking form, we must take action.  We get clear, focused, alert and tap in to our heart and wisdom by sitting and meditating.  And then we get in to action.  And then we sit.  And then we get in to action.  Ah, the dance is happening everywhere!

Look at it this way: if you want to go to beach, you start heading West.  At least you do if you live in Southern California, as I do. (Sorry, East coast and your snow! Don't hate me!).

 
Maybe you don't know what street to take - there are so many, after all.  Maybe all you know is to head West.  Great.  Start there.  You're headed West!  As you get closer to the beach, you make adjustments.  Your GPS system is your wisdom and clarity gained from your meditation practice.  You change course as needed, naturally and gracefully.  You turn down a side street, back on to a main street, hop on to the freeway for a bit and then jump off and take a rambling scenic route.  Or maybe you see a cafe that looks really, really cool and you want to get still for a while so you stop in and sit down.  And maybe that's where you decide to not go to the beach today but to start working at the cafe you're sitting in and you help turn it in to dance club where you shake your booty every night and you invent a dance called the "Action/Stillness Dance" and you find yourself being asked to be one of the judges on So You Think You Can Dance and Oprah gives you your own channel because the "Action/Stillness Dance" is sweeping the country.  It all happened because you wanted to go to the beach.  Now you can buy a house on the beach.   So there. 

And all this because you started heading toward your goal.  Toward.  Not at, like a damn torpedo, so sure and hard.  But toward, allowing the dance of stillness and action to take you where you're going.

So wherever you're at, just start heading West.  I think my friend is starting to!