The Balance of Being & Doing

image by Zac Durant

When we meet someone, one of the first things we typically ask is, “So, what do you do?” Now, imagine if instead we asked, “Who are you? What is the essence of your being?” People would look at us like we are crazy, and perhaps rightfully so. It is not easy for us to explain who we are, especially when compared with what we do. Our jobs or livelihoods tend to fit into a nice neat label, or at least a sentence or two. “I’m a bartender.” “I’m a full-time mom.” "I work with people with special needs.” “I run a company that specializes in manufacturing parts for air conditioners.” Straightforward and action-oriented. We love doing. The ego-mind, in particular, loves doing because it feels productive, as if something is being accomplished. The ego thrives on getting things done. Even if it is a small task, it likes things that can be seen, measured, quantified, known. Even if it is just pouring water back and forth from one bucket to another, it likes having tasks. It likes movement. It doesn’t know what to do with stillness or silence.

In fact, by definition, the ego cannot be still and silent. It is always in some resistance to the present moment, looking for something it can change, something it thinks should be different, something it can manipulate, something it can add. It does this in the hope that one day everything will be in perfect balance, and it will finally be content. But of course that day never comes for the ego. It will never look at the world and think, “All is well. All is as it should be.” It will always find a new problem, or create one, because it is ultimately threatened by the idea of perfect contentment, even though it claims to pursue it. A state of contentment and balance would allow the ego to recede, and Being to emerge, and for most of us, the ego is not willing to give up the throne. Even though we claim to want that, it is actually the thing we fear the most. If our sense of separateness fell away, we fear it would mean death, annihilation, or irrelevance. And that, of course, feels terrifying to the ego. So we, in our egos, have a real gift for always finding “what’s wrong.” In this way we are deeply conflicted, and this conflict frequently drives us crazy.  

Being is not so easily defined or understood as doing, and thus we often overlook or dismiss it. Tony Parsons calls Being “the open secret” because it is hiding in plain sight, and yet we do not see it. And yet once we do see it, we cannot unsee it. It reveals itself to be everywhere. There is nowhere and nothing that is not Being. Even though it is commonly perceived as “your” being and “my” being, there is only Being. Being is the same as awareness—shared awareness. There is only Being, only Oneness, only awareness. And this Being/Oneness/Awareness manifests in countless forms, including you and me.

Ultimately, a balance between being and doing is essential. If we focus only on being, we might find ourselves 'navel-gazing,' contemplating the nature of the universe or passively floating through life. While this has its time and place, without the dynamic energy of doing, we risk becoming stagnant. The spirit in us is creative and wants to be expressed. We must move, dance, touch, taste, play, create! We are here to be expressed. How do we know that? We exist! We have bodies! We are here! Look around you. All we do is create and express. 

Doing is so enticing that it has become the primary focus of how we live upon the earth. “What should we do?” is a question that drives us day in and day out. Even if not asked expressly in that way, we are constantly searching for what should be done. Politics, economics, law, science, medicine, entertainment - nearly any industry you can think of - it’s all dominated by the desire to do something. This isn’t inherently a bad thing. We are all to some degree or another fascinated with our ability to create. It is, after all, a divine gift to be able to do so. The Great Spirit is nothing if not creative, and as children of the Great Spirit we have been endowed with this same gift. But when our doing-ness is not informed by our being-ness, we can get ourselves into trouble. This is why Lao Tzu says in the Tao Te Ching, “Practice not-doing, and everything will fall into place.” When our actions are informed by our being, which is always in a clear, spacious connection with Spirit, the doing happens naturally, effortlessly, without thought, without resistance. We are all unique expressions of the divine, and the ways in which our being will inform our doing will be different for each one of us.

Being could also be understood as a state of emptiness. When we are empty we become a vessel to be filled with spirit. When we are not empty it is because we are filled with ideas, beliefs, concepts, and resistance- in short, with the persnickety ego-mind. There is no room for being to inform our actions. When this is the case our doing is motivated by the ego and its efforts to problem-solve, fix, mold, and manipulate the world into the way it thinks it should be. There is one little problem there: the ego has absolutely no idea how anything should be. How could it? It is always operating with information from the past. That is the great limitation of the ego. It can only sift through its vast archival repository of prior experiences and analyses in order to muster solutions that it thinks best fit the current situation. But only our beingness truly knows. It is the only part of us that is ever in the present moment, that truly knows what the appropriate action is to take in this moment. 

Whatever is happening right now has never happened before - even if something very similar has seemingly happened in the past - this moment is brand new. Even if we try to live our lives on a repetitive, predictable schedule (a favorite for the ego), it is still constantly new, constantly different. Such is the nature of life, it is ever-renewing, and thus it is unknowable to the ego-mind. The ego’s efforts may get close, they may approximate, but through the ego we can never fully connect to this sacred moment. Only Being can be empty and full at the same time as it inhabits this moment. This is the only true way to know what to do. We must start with not-knowing what to do. Then we can practice “not-doing” by remaining open to receive the wisdom of the moment, the knowingness of being. We can let Life tell us what to do, or not do. In this way, we are not efforting ourselves from a place of ego to project our own idealizations or past prescriptions onto a situation, person, or perceived problem. We are not thinking, guessing, speculating, or otherwise taking a shot in the dark, and this allows a higher intelligence to come through. This allows being to emerge. Being is vast, multidimensional, and connected to the wisdom of the universe. The only wise thing to do is allow it to lead the way.

We’re All On Drugs

What drugs are you on? And for that matter, what are drugs? As someone who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, I was well aware of the War on Drugs, and as a child who was eager to do the right things in life, I dutifully learned the cultural differences between good drugs and bad drugs. It was pretty easy, or so I thought. Good drugs are legal, bad drugs are illegal. Simple enough. Good drugs are namely those made by big pharmaceutical companies, intending to relieve pain, decrease symptoms, and/or regulate different systems of the body.  Bad drugs were pretty much everything else: marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, meth, LSD, magic mushrooms, heroin, and so on. I was told they were dangerous, to be avoided at all costs. It’s not long before the astute observer says, “But wait! What about alcohol and tobacco?” They are both legal drugs, so they must…good? Ot at least not dangerous, right?    

Somewhere in my late teens, I realized that the legal/illegal dividing line wasn’t as clear as I’d hoped it would be.  So how can you tell which are good drugs and which are bad drugs?  Maybe it’s not exclusively which ones are legal and which ones aren’t. Maybe to begin I need a better working definition of drugs.

A “drug,” according to dictionary.com, is “any article, other than food, intended to affect the structure or any function of the body.”  Ok, that works for me.  But doesn’t that then make everything we put into our bodies drugs?

First and foremost, I don’t know why food gets a pass in that definition. I know that culturally we do not think of food as a drug, but maybe we should. I mean, it seems quite obvious to me that food alters the functions of the body. In many ways, that’s its purpose.  But some foods seem more like drugs than others.  Let’s start with the obvious: sugar.  I will be the first to tell you about my lifelong love affair with sugar, but at this stage in the game, I try to eat it sparingly, because I feel the intensity of what sugar is doing to my system. I feel its drug-like effects. Sugar is so intense, and so addictive, that it is now behind two major health epidemics in our country: diabetes and obesity.  Speaking of which, have you ever heard of Mountain Dew Mouth?  (Be careful if you do a Google image search, but be advised, it is a very real thing.)  Some people, mostly in the Appalachian states, drink on average 8-10 cans of Mountain Dew a day, consuming little to no water, and consequently it rots all their teeth, much the same as meth-addicts.  Why is Mountain Dew the soda of choice?  Because it has more sugar and caffeine than others sodas.

Of course that’s an extreme example, but have you ever watched a child eat a cupcake and then scream and bounce around the house? That’s a kid being high. Most adults have their own complicated relationship with sugar, and if you start reading labels, you’ll be surprised to see how much sugar is in our food (ketchup, cereal, peanut butter, etc.)  It’s a way of life, and it is so common and accepted that of course we don’t think that sugar is a drug.  But cheering yourself up by eating a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s?  What’s not drugs about that?   

What about people that cannot function in the morning until they’ve had their coffee?  Isn’t that drugs?  

What about the energy drink craze in this country?  Completely legal drugs.

What about bread?  People have emotional relationships to bread.  Have you ever noticed that?  

And cheese? If you tell a cheese-lover that they can’t have cheese anymore, I daresay the reaction would be much like any other addict who can’t get a hold of more drugs.

So food is, for all intents and purposes, a drug. It is something which alters and affects the mood, chemistry, and functionality of the body.

So clearly there are good drugs, and bad drugs. Good drugs, I would say, are anything that you put in your body that supports your vital essence, promotes holistic wellness, increases your overall health, and/or fosters a healthy connection to Spirit. Bad drugs, then, would be anything that drains your vital essence, treats symptoms instead of root causes, decreases your overall health, and becomes a tool of the ego, essentially used as a substitute for your connection with the divine.

I am not someone who practices lumping things into 2 categories, so I will make it a point here to say that, NO, I don’t believe everything is as easy as labeling it “good” or “bad,” (nor do I truly believe in “good” and “bad” at all, but that’s another topic.) For the purposes of this article, I am trying to illustrate that the way we treat our bodies can be seen as that which supports health and wellness, and that which does not.  There are always exceptions.  Here are two:

1. Too much of any good drug can easily become a bad drug. We must consider balance.  

2. Sometimes a bad drug may be good, most notably “emergency medicine”, which literally saves people’s lives, but does not address the root cause. 

I encourage you to examine what kinds of drugs you are on.  Are you putting things in your body to promote your overall health and healing, or are you looking for the quick fix, the short-term pleasure, the mood adjuster?  Have your drugs caused you to “settle” in your search for expansion, in becoming the highest, best, version of yourself?  Are they just helping you to get by?  

Now let’s replace the word “drugs” with “medicine.” Shamans look at the whole world as though it is medicine. Everything you consume, physically or energetically, can been seen as medicine. I have been specifically talking about drugs in this article, and what we put in our bodies, but really everything can be seen as medicine, everything has “drug-like” effects, be they intense or mild.  A good conversation is medicine. Think of a hot (or cold) shower. That’s good medicine. Did you get a solid night of sleep last night? That’s really good medicine. Listen to your favorite song. Good medicine. Think of an abusive relationship. Bad medicine. Or when you have one of those draining conversations. Bad medicine. Getting high every single night. Bad medicine. You get the point.  

This has been a helpful teaching for me, and a great way to look at the world.  What medicines do I take?  What do I need?  What drugs am I on?  Is this healing me, or just temporarily relieving my suffering?  As Ram Dass liked to say, “Do you want to get high, or do you want to get free? Find the medicine that will help you become free.

Top 10 Lessons I’ve Learned From Psychedelics

I haven’t written or spoken in any kind of public way about my journey with plant medicines, also known as psychedelics, but now feels like a good time for me to start sharing. The stigma around these mysterious and often misunderstood medicines is lifting, as evidenced by their decriminalization in places like Oregon and Colorado where I live, and if you ask me, it’s about time. It seems like plant medicines and psychedelics are entering the mainstream consciousness right now in a way that has the potential to catalyze major growth, healing, and much-needed change for a significant amount of the population, and in a relatively short period of time. In short, it is the medicine we need right now. I have been working with several master plant-teachers for nearly 20 years, and the benefits I have received have been invaluable and life-altering to say the least. There is so much to say on this topic, but for now I will limit myself to sharing with you 10 major insights I’ve experienced working with these medicines. 

1.) It’s good to be uncomfortable.

Gosh, we hate being uncomfortable, don’t we? In modern life, we have really come to value comfort above almost all else. We have built our lives in such a way to maximize comfort in every possible area. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being comfortable. I love being comfortable. But is it healthy if we’re always and only comfortable? Psychedelics have taught me otherwise. 

Nothing will cause us to experience discomfort like a good psychedelic journey. There is discomfort in not-knowing what it will be like and not having any control over what will happen. There is discomfort when we brush up against our unhealed parts. And there is discomfort when we resist what is happening, or when we are confronted with those things we’ve been trying to avoid. But when we make room for the discomfort and have the courage to face our fears and surrender to the wisdom of the medicine, amazing things can happen. We can move through our fear. We can see things we have been avoiding, and we can learn how to heal. Through discomfort, we build strength, resiliency, and fortitude. On the other side of discomfort, we can experience a greater depth of acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, and unconditional love. 

Personally, I have come to enjoy regularly work with psychedelics for reasons like these. I don’t like being uncomfortable (who does?), but I appreciate the fruit that discomfort bears. Every single time I work with psychedelics I go through this, and every single time I am grateful for the experience, despite the protestations of my ego in the interim. It reliably facilitates phenomenal growth in my life, and all I have to accept is about six hours of moderate to intense discomfort.

2.) Everything is perfect exactly the way it is.

This is the kind of idea that flies right in the face of the ego, which has endless ideas about how things should be, precious few of which are “exactly how they are right now.” But psychedelics can open us up in such a way that allows us to relax into our natural state of being, which allows us to see with abundant clarity: Everything that has ever happened, is happening right now, and will ever happen, is perfect just the way it is. It certainly does not seem “perfect” to the ego or personality-self which has endless ideas about what’s wrong and what should be done to make it right. Even so, it is felt and known as perfect to our underlying essence.

Through the use of natural medicines, or organic technologies as I sometimes call them, we can practice accepting and trusting Life in its wisdom and perfection. This is much easier to do when, under the influence of the medicine, the ego has receded and we can see with extraordinary clarity that everything is as it needs to be. Spending time in this space can also plant the seeds that will grow into our “ordinary” lives and allow us to integrate and embody this perspective all of the time, not just while we’re in a sacred ceremony. These medicines can open our eyes to the inherent perfection of life, enabling us to see that it is an ongoing miracle, not something that needs to be improved or fixed.

3.) Life works better when we surrender.

The most common reason I hear as to why people don’t want to work with psychedelics is that they are afraid of losing control. This of course implies that they are in control to begin with. The question to ask here is, “Who is afraid of losing control? Is it your ego or your essence?” I would suggest it’s always ego. At an essence-level, there’s really no such thing as control. Our essence always works in concert with God/Spirit/Life Itself and knows how to go with the flow and make choices accordingly. Ego, on the other hand, is like a frightened child who feels alone and doesn’t know what to do. It mistrusts God/Spirit/Life at a fundamental level, especially in regards to its unknown qualities, and as a response it cultivates all sorts of fear-based beliefs, behaviors, and rituals in order to protect itself and feel safe. It desperately tries to create and maintain control.

Psychedelics have shown me that life is not meant to be controlled, nor is it possible to do so even if we wanted. It’s far too big for that. Life is happening, God is happening, the Universe is happening. Do we really think we can control that? We do much better when we align ourselves with it and go with the flow. These doesn’t mean to live passively, but rather to live without resistance to what is happening.

I fought hard in the early days of ceremony against giving up control and allowing the medicine in. My ego was stubborn and afraid, but my essence was committed to healing and awakening. I kept showing up, and over the course many years and many ceremonies I learned how to surrender. It is still an ongoing practice every time I sit with the medicine. But I’ve noticed it always feels so much better to work with and surrender to life rather than kick and fight against it.  

4.) Love is infinitely more powerful than fear.

On several occasions now, I have experienced the incredible power of love in psychedelic ceremonies. It is hard to talk about because of how cliche it can sound when reduced to words. “Oh my gosh, love conquers all, you guys!” I know, I know, ridiculous. But there is a chasm between the concept of love and the direct experience of unconditional love. I personally don’t recall receiving that kind of love in my human relationships, but let me tell you, it may be the most powerful force in the universe. Receiving that kind of love from Spirit, through the medicine, has more than once reduced me to a quivering mess of tears, joy, and gratitude for the sheer gift of being alive. It has also taught me how to love in this way. I haven’t mastered it, but I can practice it now. I understand what it means to love and be loved. 

Love, in its truest form, is an energy that holds everything together and permeates all of existence and non-existence. We literally can’t be alive without it. It is the ocean in which we all swim. John Lennon sang “All you need is love” but I would counter, “All there is is love.” Needing it implies we could ever be without it. We may not always be aware of the presence of love, but it is the underlying reality. Fear, by contrast, is merely a shadow. It has no reality. I know that fear can feel very real when we experience it, but it seems to derive all of its power from our inability or unwillingness to confront it. We avoid it, deny it, dismiss it, and resist it. That’s the funny thing about fear. When we confront it, it falls apart. When the light of love shines in the darkness of fear, poof! It’s gone. It doesn’t stand a chance. What recourse does a dark room have when you turn on a light? There is no struggle, there’s only illumination. Fear’s got nothing on love.

5.) No one is coming to save us. 

This can be a tough pill to swallow, because a lot of people desperately want someone or something to intervene and save us from the myriad crises our world is facing. I’m not just talking about Christians who may be anxiously and expectantly awaiting the Second Coming. I’m also talking about people who think an economic or climate collapse could initiate the change that will save us. I’m talking about people who think that tech-billionaires will save us. Or if only we would elect the right politicians, they’d save us. Perhaps benevolent extraterrestrials will intercede and save us. You get the picture. 

Behind all of this is the belief that we are not willing, capable, or responsible to save ourselves. We have claimed denial, laziness, and powerlessness in their place, and they are working against us in a big way. We are like children in this respect who want mom and dad to clean up our messes for us and protect us from any difficulty or uncomfortable situations. But we all have to do our own work, and this starts with taking complete responsibility for ourselves. There is no other way around it. There is no outside savior. As the saying goes, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” 

Psychedelics are masterful teachers in this respect, encouraging us to courageously explore that within us which needs attention and healing. They also help us to find the latent power that lies within us, which in turn guides us to take full responsibility for ourselves. We’ve got plenty of help and support in each other, in our guides and teachers, in the unseen realms through our spirit guides and allies, and of course through Spirit itself. We don’t need to be lone-wolf heroes. That’s just more ego-nonsense. But no one is coming to save us, because no one needs to come and save us. We’ve got this.

6.) My opinions don’t matter.

Here we have another affront to the personality-self who tends to cherish its opinions, and loves weighing in on every last topic. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with having opinions. The trouble arises when we become identified with our opinions. Being identified with our opinions means that we derive our sense of self, our identity, from our mental positions. It’s when we think we are what we think. This is a very narrow, not to mention erroneous, way to see ourselves. Who we are in truth has nothing to do with what we think, not even a little. We are so much bigger than that. Thoughts and opinions come and go, but what is it that remains? What is it in us that never changes? It is our awareness, which is timeless and boundless. It has no inherently fixed positions. It is free.

Psychedelics can act as a lubricant, loosening and softening some of those tightly held opinions. We may still hold them, just not so tightly. Sometimes these medicines can show us very directly how absurd we are to cling in the ways we do. They do this with love, sometimes gently, sometimes forcefully, if that’s what we need. They teach us to rest in our awareness, unidentified with the activity of the mind, letting it all come and go. In short, they connect us to our true, free essence. Opinions still arise in the mind but there is no “self” which grabs at them and identifies with them. It sounds simple, and in a way it is, but it’s amazing how much the ego-mind loves to be right and argue with others who it thinks are wrong. Most of us have spent a lifetime doing this, so it can be a real practice to change our ways. Plant medicines can be wonderful allies for this work.

7.) I am not the story of my life.

This was one of the lessons I received in my first ayahuasca ceremony, and boy was it illuminating. Like so many psychedelic insights, it’s hard to put into words, but I’ll do my best. I can’t say how, or why, but through the power and grace of the medicine, I felt a deep knowing that my “life story” was a complete fiction. It became clear as day to me that the narrative of my life, as I have told it and recounted it to myself, as well as how others have told and recounted it to me, both consciously and unconsciously, is not who I am. This led me to the next obvious question, “Then who am I?”

The answer to this question has been unfolding in my life for many years now, both in and out of ceremony. I could say, “I am spirit”, “I am awareness”, “I am love”, or “I am nothing” and those would all be true. This has more recently led me into the deeper waters of non-dualism, where I have discovered that there is no “me” at all. There is only awareness. Through this lens, “I am” does not refer to the self, it refers to All There Is. This is a shared I AM-ness that we are all a part of. This requires a sort of mental recalibration, because we typically conflate “I am” with “me”, and that is the source of basically all of our confusion.

There is only I AM, there is no me. There is only Spirit, there is only Awareness, there is only Unity. However we attempt to say it, that is all there is. So how can we craft a story out of that? We can’t. It’s everything, and nothing.

8.) There is nothing that cannot be healed.

If we look at the world around us, we can find many seemingly justifiable reasons to despair. I’m not going to list them here, you know what they are. We might also feel reasons to despair about our own lives. Maybe we feel like there is something deeply broken within us. Maybe there’s some trauma we think we’ll never heal from. But one major lesson that psychedelics have taught me is that there is absolutely nothing that cannot be healed. 

We don’t know how it will look, or on what timeline it will happen, but if we are willing and sincere in our desire to heal, life itself will respond and meet us in ways that support our healing. We will find the right book, the right friend, the right teacher, or the right therapist. We’ll have the right conversation, the right insight, the right day at the beach, and it will all weave together in a way that will support our greater return to balance and wholeness. We’ll take the right actions every step of the way. Life is always working to create and maintain balance, and in many ways, healing is nothing more than bringing back into balance that which is imbalanced.

It is likely that the biggest obstacle in our healing is the belief that we cannot. The mind would often have us believe that we are up against impossible odds, that we are too far gone, that our wounds are insurmountable. The first step in healing is opening up to the idea, “What if that’s not true? What if this can be healed?” The next step is to become willing and to intend for it to happen. Then we must open up to receive it. Lastly, we claim it as ours. Healing is our birthright, and please don’t let anyone tell you differently. 

9.) Death is the ultimate trip.

Another gift I received more than once from ayahuasca was the experience of dying. I went through a very convincing and thorough death process. I left my body, but there was no fear around it. Some part of me knew that I wasn’t really dying, that I would come back, but there was a clear recognition that “this is what dying feels like.” It was intense. But you know what? I survived it every time. I mean this half-jokingly, but part of the realization that came from this was that we do survive death. Yes, the body ceases to be the vehicle for our expression, but our essence, our awareness, our soul, our I AM-ness, whatever term you like, goes on. It is the part of us that was never born and will never die. This realization is also “I am not the body,” something we know and say in spiritual circles, but do we really believe it? Do we know it? 

Since having these insights, I have started to think of death, which can sound scary and final, as simply another birth. Just as we were born into this world, upon “death” we are born into the next world. My form will change, but I will never change. It’s a big transition to be sure, but really, it is no cause for fear. In fact, there is good reason to believe it will be an amazing journey. We know that upon death the brain releases DMT, which is the active ingredient in ayahuasca. So journeying with ayahuasca, which incidentally is known as “the vine of the dead,” is a wonderful way to prepare for our eventual and inevitable passage through death. I hope when it’s my time, I can cross the threshold of death similar to the way Steve Jobs did when he passed away. His last words were reportedly, “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”

10.) There is only Spirit.

I’ve already mentioned this in some of the other insights, but really it deserves it’s own place on this list. To me it is the grand realization. Call it by whatever name you will, but there is nothing that is not Spirit. All of life is sacred, it’s all holy, and it’s all divine. Even the person you hate the most. Even those people over there doing those bad things. There is nothing that is not God. We may act in a way that denies God, and this is what we would call “evil,” but that does nothing to change our true nature, and the nature of All Being. There is nothing that can be outside of the light and the love of Spirit. If we knew this, really knew this, the world would change overnight.

This is the truth that the human race is learning right now, and it will revolutionize the planet once enough of us get it. Not everyone will, at least not all in one generation or in one lifetime, but I feel it deep in my bones that we will reach a tipping point that is fast approaching. 

When enough of us understand and embody this truth, we will no longer fight wars, steal from each other, lie to each other, plunder and destroy the Earth, or commit any other atrocity we see in the news now on a daily basis. If there is only Spirit, there is nothing “other” left to attack. There is no evil or darkness that needs to be banished. There is only the need to shine the light of awareness on all things in truth and love. Can you imagine that? What would that world look like?

I’m not saying this will all happen through psychedelics, but it does seem to me that their resurgence now into the mainstream is not accidental. They seem primed to play a significant role in the healing and awakening of the human species. I for one am here for it.

What have been your big lessons from psychedelics? I’d love to hear from you.

The Meaning of Life

I’ve always liked asking the big questions, so let’s get right into it, and start with one of the classics:

What is the meaning of life?

Interestingly, when people ask this question it seems to me they are really asking a slightly different question, which is, “What is the meaning of my life?" or “Why am I here?” After all, who knows the meaning of all of life? Many people have guesses, but no one knows for certain. Most of us would be satisfied just to know why we are here. This desire has given birth to religions, philosophies, belief systems, and all sorts of ideas striving to answer this inherently mysterious question.

Personally, I believe no one knows because life actually doesn’t have any meaning. Or to put it in a less bleak-sounding way, life is its own meaning. We are alive for the simple joy of being alive! That’s really it. What more do we need? 

Isn’t it enough to be, to play, to express, to create, to connect, to move, to sing, to feel, to think, to love, to dance, to laugh, to explore? None of those needs a reason why or a deeper meaning. They are their own reward. They don’t need a religion or a philosophy to explain them. And they tend to be how we show up when we are unencumbered by any restraints, when we feel truly free.   

Of course there are a million things that can interfere with our ability to feel free and be authentically expressed, which is why I am writing this. It’s why I have a healing practice and support other people (schedule a session today!). It’s why I work with plant medicines. It’s why I meditate. It’s why I enjoy reminding you of who you are, of who we all are, beneath our typically serious adult demeanors. I get it. Things get in the way!

One of the biggest things that gets in the way, in my humble opinion, is that as we grow older we get way too serious. We stop laughing, dancing, and playing in order to perform what we think are our duties. We function as cogs in a machine that doesn’t even know we are human, let alone that we are divine. 

We lose nearly all spontaneity and lightness as we adhere to a structure that is rigid, confining, and too often soul-crushing.  We are driven by success, by duty, by responsibility, by our mortgage, and by fear. We do what we think we should, what we are taught, what is expected of us. Slowly all of the fun seems to drain out of life, and as Alan Watts once said, “Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.” Life is supposed to be fun! It’s absurd that we are here! It’s silly! Let’s enjoy it.

In 2009, a hospice worker named Bronnie Ware wrote about the top five regrets of dying people. They were, in order:

1.) I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. 

2.) I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

3.) I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

4.) I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5.) I wish that I had let myself be happier.

These sad reminders are all pointing us back to the shared truth that we are here to be free, to be ourselves, to play, feel, express, connect, and be happy. Let us all learn from those who have gone before so that we regret nothing on our deathbeds.

The meaning of life is to celebrate life. We are here! We are aware! Isn’t that incredible? We are engaged in what I like to call divine play. But we think there must be more to it. That answer is too simple. Our so-called adult minds gravitate towards complexity and believe that we also need to work, and create banks, and health insurance, and cars, and indoor plumbing, and cell phones. 

We have created a world far more complex than it needs to be. Why? I’m not sure we know why. We’ve just done it. Partly it’s because we are inherently creative creatures, and we love to make things. The deeper issue is that so many of our creative pursuits are compelled by a sense of fear, greed, lack, and separation. Thus our creations end up reflecting that. We end up unnecessarily complicating our lives this way, along with perpetuating states of fear and separation. 

We are also driven by the sense that happiness is right around the corner, if only we could mold the world manipulate our lives into the exact right conditions. Of course, those conditions will never arrive, and if they do, they are fleeting. We will continue to tinker and tweak and manipulate and complain, finding infinite ways to “improve” things instead of finding the peace and happiness that lies within us already. 

This isn’t to say nothing needs to be done, that we should avoid all responsibility and live lives of indulgence, excess, greed, and laziness. Nor is it a call for more navel-gazing. Far from it. It is simply to say that when we are aligned with our divinely and innately playful selves, we will be motivated to do a great many things. But that motivation will not come from a place of fear or lack, but rather from joy, connection, and celebration. 

Everything that needs to be done will be done without effort, without resistance, without fear. It is done in a spirit of willingness, cooperation, and joy. We take care of each other because we love each other. Life returns to its playful origins. Foraging for food is a game. Making and sharing a meal is a time for community. Building a home is a group project undertaken in love. Bathing is a time to nurture the body and delight in the cleansing power of water. How sweet it can all be!  

This is the meaning of life: To live it fully! It is not for a future reward, nor is it to get anywhere. There is nowhere to go! This is all that is happening. We are free-falling in the eternal is-ness of Spirit, and while that sounds terrifying to the ego, it is the only place we can truly be at home. It is where we are truly free. Here, now. This is it. We all live in the mystery, and when we can accept that, we can truly start to experience the simple joy of being alive. 

“Why do you call it Ordinary Awakenings? Isn’t awakening extraordinary?”

The short answer:

No, there is nothing extraordinary about awakening. It’s who we all are already. It’s right here. We are awareness itself. But we seldom (if ever) notice because we are so entranced and distracted by the things we are aware of. We are hypnotized by the world of forms, the dream world. Awakening is simply becoming awake to awareness. It is seeing past the veil of appearance, the dream world, to the mysterious, unknowable essence beneath.

It is the dropping of the seeker that believes there is something to find, and returning to the simple joy of being alive. It isn’t even the seeker who awakens. The seeker simply vanishes and this is awakening. When this is experienced, it is remarkably ordinary. It also seems so obvious, we might wonder how we ever could have missed it. It is the punchline to the cosmic joke. It is a delight and a relief. The seeker never was. All there is is Spirit (Nothing, Oneness, Mystery, Void) pretending to be Everything.

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The longer answer:

Awakening is a homecoming to who we were before we mistakenly thought we were somebody separate. Before we thought we had lost something. Before fear became a guiding force in our lives. It’s who we are when we’re not seeking and resisting. We seek for Spirit, and we resist seeing that all there is is Spirit. We’re funny that way. We’re constantly looking for something that we already are, and yet are in deep resistance to finding. This is the drama that makes the world go round.

Most people don’t go around claiming to be seeking Spirit (which we could also call by many other names). They seek happiness, peace, fulfillment, purpose, balance, wholeness, you name it. In truth, they seek the end of seeking. This is only found in Spirit. So whatever we think we are seeking, we are actually seeking Spirit. The realization that we are spirit is what brings about the end of seeking, which in turn brings about those things we claim to be looking for. They’re already here. We never lost them. We cannot lose them, because we cannot lose what we are. 

The apparent problem is that we actually don’t know who we are. We are confused, and in our confusion we believe we are separate and lacking. This gives rise to the ego-mind, which leads us on an endless quest to find unity and wholeness, two things that we can never find, because we already are.

The ego believes that awakening to our natural state is a kind of superhuman accomplishment, a near-impossible phenomenon. It believes that something incredible must happen before we can arrive there. It will remain steadfast in its goal of seeking and resisting to obscure the ever-present joy and exquisitely ordinary beauty of who and what we already are.

Beneath all of our confusion about all this, we already know that all there is is Spirit. We know that everything is perfect the way it is. We know that nothing needs to be done. We know there is nothing to attain. We know that who we are is uncaused joy and peace. And we know that it’s been this way the entire time. We just like to pretend otherwise. Like I said, we’re funny that way. 

Prior to awakening, we typically walk around all day thinking we are making choices, doing things, thinking thoughts, feeling feelings. But what if choices only appear to be made? What if thoughts arise from nowhere? What if feelings simply come and go? Are you controlling any of it? Is that even possible? Did you decide to read this, or did it just sort of happen? It’s worth meditating on: “Who is this “me” to whom this is happening?” “Where is this me? Can I find it?” “What is this me?” “What am I?” “Am I deciding anything, or do decisions just happen of their own accord?” If we were really in control of our thoughts, feeling, and emotions - wouldn’t the world look drastically different? Why would we ever struggle? Wouldn’t we just choose to be happy all the time? 

The final realization in awakening is that there is no me. There are no individuals. This isn’t an intellectual understanding, but an energetic shift, an embodied knowing. When this shift occurs, the illusion falls away, and only Spirit remains. We see that what we previously thought was me is only Spirit playing the character of David, or Lisa, or John. There is no longer the sense of an isolated individual who is the owner/operator of a body-mind. This is the big difference. Otherwise, life still goes on much the same. As the old saying does, “Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.” Everything still gets done, but now there is an awareness that “no one” is doing it. It’s all Spirit. It’s all divine play.  

“The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there’s no ground.”

-Chogyam Trungpa

The beauty of awakening is that there is nothing that you need to do. In fact, there is nothing you can do. It will happen when it happens. The seeker likes to think of it as something it can acquire (if it just seeks hard enough!), when in fact, awakening is more like losing everything we thought we had. It is the very loss of the seeker and the realization that this is all there is. There is only Life, living itself. There is only Spirit, expressing itself in infinite form and appearance. There is only Nothing appearing to be Something. There is only Being. We can call it whatever we like. There is no true label.

We can’t be separate, because there is nothing to be separate from. All is Spirit. All is a mystery. All is a miracle. We can’t get away from it. It’s so obvious, and so wonderfully ordinary.