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Harness the Power of Love-Sponsored Desire

Desire is a confusing idea. We’re taught that desire is what leads us astray, that it makes us materialistic and unsatisfied with our lot. To be free from desire implies that we’ve achieved a state of moral and/or spiritual perfection – plus deep inner peace. On the other hand, a lack of desire might mean we’re complacent, lacking ambition, or dimwitted. After all, the reputation of every revered historical figure was rooted in strong desire – to set slaves free, to achieve peace, to get women the right to vote – and it changed the world for the better.

We’re also taught that we deserve to have and enjoy desirable things. And everyone knows that it’s important to be desirable to whomever we might want to attract or impress. Marketers have long reminded us that we’ll be undesirable to a prospective lover, boss, or college admissions officer if we have dandruff on our shirt, ring around the collar, or yellow teeth.

Clearly there’s no single correct answer to the question of whether desire is good or bad. It all depends on what’s behind that desire and how we relate to it.

A tidbit I appreciate from the work of Neale Donald Walsch is the notion that our desires tend to be “sponsored” by either love or fear. Fear-based desire is exceedingly common. It’s part of why capitalism is such a massive force in the world. Because of fear, we desire security and protection, and we’re often motivated to pursue them at the expense of growth and healing. Moved by fear of inadequacy, we might desire a flashy car or a trophy partner – whatever we perceive as signaling our prowess to others. Gripped by fear of death we desire whatever we believe will tether us to life.

Love-sponsored desire is very different. Most importantly, the quality of the energy behind it is different. If you met two people intent on changing the world, one driven by love-sponsored desire, the other by fear-sponsored desire, you couldn’t assume that the fear-driven one wants to change it in bad ways. Or that the love-driven one is going to be more effective. But if you got to know these people, you’d feel the difference and it would be written all over how they relate to life.

Which would you prefer to be driven by? Regardless of your answer (I’m going to take a wild guess and say, “love-sponsored desire”) it’s worthwhile to discern your motivations. If you discover that you’re following a course that’s dictated by fear-sponsored thoughts and desires, there’s an opportunity for liberation – from both the fear and the lifeforce-draining remedies you’re pursuing. If your desires are sponsored by fear, you’ll find that when you challenge them your mind gets defensive. And if you ask, “What if I relinquish this desire?” the response is, “Something bad will happen.”

This isn’t the case with love-sponsored desires. There’s no feeling of, “I have to do this or else!” It’s more like, “My Highest Self is calling me to do this,” and you can feel that it’s coming from love. That said, there may occasionally be cases when some form of harm is occurring and you feel moved by love to help – like getting involved to stop human trafficking or animal abuse. But the difference is, your heart will feel open.

Whereas fear-sponsored desire is rooted in one’s own subconscious thoughts, love-sponsored desire is transpersonal. That is, both its source and its scope are beyond the personality.

It’s similar to concept of iccha shakti as defined in the ancient philosophy of Nondual Shaiva Tantra (NST). A Sanskit term, iccha shakti is used commonly to mean willpower or life drive, but the NST definition is more specific. In the words of author Christopher Wallis, it’s “a precognitive creative urge toward self-expression. It is the impulse behind the manifestation of a universe and behind all artistic expression that is done for its own sake.” Like the idea of love-sponsored desire, to be an expression of iccha shakti means to be moved not by the will of the personality but by divine will that seeks expression through us.

Wallis continues: “The more we access our real innate nature, the more we can draw on the unfailing power of the divine Will. The Will seeks self-expression for no reason other than the joy inherent in the act of self-expression. If you are tapping into iccha shakti in your pursuits in life, be they dancing or computer repair, you will have a vast reservoir of energy to draw on. This is because when you are pursuing an activity as a form of self-expression, it replenishes you instead of draining you.” And I would say the same goes for being led by love-sponsored desire.

I encourage you to ask yourself some questions. At any time you feel strongly moved, you can ask, “Is this a fear-sponsored or love-sponsored thought / feeling / action?” You can also ask, “What is love sponsoring in my life?” or “Where does love want to take me?” Does your work feel connected to iccha shakti? If not, can you change how you relate to it and let love and iccha shakti be sponsors? I always enjoy hearing how these articles land with you.

Be well,

Peter

 

© 2020 by Peter Borten

Invite Spirit to Join You

One of the most basic ways to grow the spiritual dimension of your life is to consciously invite Spirit into whatever you’re doing. It’s like there’s a friend who’s been hanging out in the background while you eat and work and exercise, and you’re saying, “Oh, I forgot you were there. Would you like to join me?”

Doing so doesn’t require any particular spiritual or religious orientation. Even if you’re an atheist, you can probably still conceive of a Highest Self – an aspect of you that, in a way, is more You than any of the various personalities, thought patterns, or styles you’ve had throughout your life. It’s a stable, enduring, virtuous witness to everything you’ve been and done.

Our ability to sense this presence, whatever we choose to call it, waxes and wanes. Same with the degree to which we let it guide us. As these factors increase (more awareness and willingness to be guided), we experience a corresponding increase in trust, an expanded perspective, and less overwhelm. The feeling of being small and helpless in a big scary world diminishes.

If you haven’t done this much (or at all) it can feel at first like you’re hanging out with an imaginary friend. Is this real? Are they still in the room? It’s especially common if this is a dimension you’ve barely tuned in to. You’re used to giving most of your attention to relatively tangible and superficial planes of existence – media and culture, your possessions, your body, your thoughts and emotions. Over time the sense of opening to something bigger and subtler becomes more palpable. Simply remembering and intending to invite this Consciousness into more of your experiences makes a difference.

To get started, you could just try quieting your mind for a moment and saying hello. Hello, Source. Hello, Highest Self. Hello, Divine Light. Then be still and see if you notice anything. I believe we are that Source experiencing itself as a human being. There is no true separation, only the veil of the mind (which can be quite obscure). Your Highest Self wants to be perceived and known and consciously channeled.

Here are some other possible invitations:

Come on this hike with me. Help me notice what I usually miss.

Show me what I need to see for my healing and evolution.

Let me stay present and accepting through this event.

Let’s experience the act of eating delicious food together.

Let me see this through the eyes of my Highest Self / Spirit / God / Unconditional Love / Awareness.

But it’s not just the pleasant things that are worth inviting Spirit into. . .

I let you into my fear so that you may share it, illuminate it, transform it.

Come into my pain; please be with me in this suffering.

I invite you into my grief, as this, too, is part of the human experience.

Enter this crazy situation with me, Highest Self, and give me perspective. 

Join me, Divine Light, in my depression, and hold me.

These painful states inevitably change when we open them to the spiritual dimension. It’s the simplest thing to do, yet sometimes the hardest to remember. This message is for me as much as it is for you.

Be well,

Peter

© 2022 by Peter Borten

Is God Broccoli?

As a young adult I often stayed at the beautiful Marin Headlands hostel just north of San Francisco. I was there one weekend while a large group of missionaries was passing through. We were all sharing the same kitchen space and I was chopping some broccoli when a cute young woman around my age approached me. We started talking and I thought it was going well. I have always enjoyed conversing about spirituality and religion, even with people of different beliefs than my own.

At the time I was immersed in learning about Advaita – nondualism – which was blowing my mind. Nondual philosophy asserts that, although we perceive many things that may feel separate, in reality everything is an expression of a single Oneness experiencing itself in infinite ways.

Some people call this Oneness God or Goddess or Source or Divine or Dao. What’s important isn’t the name but the experience of this connection, and how it redefines how we see reality.

I had in my suitcase a book called Aghora in which an eccentric spiritual teacher explains that since everything is God, both sex and eating are simply acts of “putting God into God.” So, when this missionary girl asked me what I was doing, I guess I thought I was being clever my replying, “Oh, just chopping up some God.”

She was clearly taken aback, so I explained that if the whole universe is an expression of one God, then broccoli was of course included, and therefore I was chopping up some God to put into God (myself). She was speechless for a moment, then said – a bit louder than was called for, I thought – “God is not broccoli!” and walked away.

There are several lessons in this story, starting with (1) nobody likes a smug person pushing their buttons, and (2) if you truly want to make a difference in the world you need to meet people where they are. But aside from my social failure, maybe the most important lesson was that there’s often a huge difference between the description of an experience and the experience itself. In other words, to understand something intellectually tells us nothing of how we’d be affected by experiencing it.

In lectures, I used to explain how physics seems to “prove” nondualism, hoping that even the nonspiritual types in the class would be won over. I’d point out that while each of us feels we’re separate from everyone else in the classroom, we and the world around us are all just different configurations of the same fundamental stuff – subatomic particles or even more fundamental fluctuations of energy. It’s a powerful idea, but I doubt it’s caused many people to conduct themselves differently towards their neighbors.

For me and most people I know, life changes have come through direct experiences of this Oneness in non-ordinary states of consciousness facilitated mainly by meditation, yoga, ritual, self-inquiry, immersion in nature, music, acupuncture, art, pain, dance, conscious breathing, interpersonal connection, and entheogenic substances. Ordinary reality (even with impressive-yet-unactualized spiritual concepts) appears random and soulless by comparison.

I didn’t have the chance to ask, “If God is not broccoli, what is broccoli?” We tend to draw vague, subjective lines around life and then deem one side worthy of our reverence and the other unworthy, but the abolition of such lines isn’t automatically liberating. I’ve seen people, myself included, latch onto the idea that everything is Divine and then fall into nihilism. Because, if it’s all God, why try? Why care? Why choose one path over any other?

This kind of thinking is a sure sign that we’re operating from a mental concept and not actually experiencing what it represents. It would be similar to take a psychedelic mushroom and hold it between your teeth, telling yourself, “So this is what psychedelic mushrooms are all about. Meh.”

Your homework is to determine whether or not broccoli is God. Since “God” is a spiritual concept, it can’t really be assessed in ordinary reality. Everyday thinking needs to fall away. You can get there using any of the approaches I mentioned above.

Be well,

Peter

© 2023 by Peter Borten

 

P.S. I’d like to share one of my favorite quotes on nondualism from Tantra scholar Christopher Wallis in Tantra Illuminated (slightly abridged for space):

“Since reality is One, and everything is equally an expression of the one divine Light of Consciousness, every experience by definition is an experience of God… If we propose that some things are more God than others, like concentrated orange juice versus watered-down orange juice, then we must propose the existence of something that is not God that waters down divinity. But no such thing can be found, at least in this philosophy, because 1) the definition of God here is the unbounded Light of Consciousness, 2) everything that is known to exist is an object of experience, and 3) every experience is by definition pervaded by consciousness. Therefore, this – whatever is happening right now – is as God as it gets. Now, if you are in a miserable or banal life situation, you may be disappointed by this announcement. But notice I said, ‘This is as God as it gets,’ not, ‘This is as free as it gets.’ Freedom means actually experiencing the divinity in each moment.”

It’s Okay to Mind What Happens

In my previous article (see “Can We Be Misguided By Spiritual Truths?”) I shared a quote from spiritual teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti: “Do you want to know my secret? I don’t mind what happens.” Then we looked at the differences between an absolute spiritual truth and the relative perspective of most humans. When we encounter an absolute view that we haven’t personally realized and experienced, sometimes it doesn’t make sense or it even has the opposite effect of what was intended.

If we imagine “I don’t mind what happens” to mean “nothing bothers me,” this contradicts most people’s daily experience. But it fits right in with a common belief that when we’re evolved or enlightened we’ll be imperturbable. Without having realized the absolute truth this statement came from, we might apply it to our relative experience in a way that amounts to denying our humanity.

Buddhist psychologist and author, John Welwood, who coined the term “spiritual bypass,” explained that we have a tendency to use absolute truths of spirituality to dismiss “relative human needs, feelings, psychological problems, relational difficulties, and developmental deficits.” He believed we need to recognize “two different tracks of human development— which we might call growing up and waking up, healing and awakening, or becoming a genuine human person and going beyond the person altogether.”1 Thus, it’s possible to resolve all our psychological problems without achieving a spiritual awakening, and it’s also possible to wake up spiritually and still have a highly dysfunctional personality.

So, what is the place of such statements of absolute spiritual truth in a relative world? In my opinion, despite their potential to be misunderstood, it’s still useful to expose ourselves to them. We shouldn’t confuse the destination with the path, and we shouldn’t expect ourselves to be able to embody them at will, but they can still serve as a messenger to our soul.

When we encounter a statement like, “I don’t mind what happens,” and we’re ripe for it, it’s like a key that unlocks something within us. Maybe it stirs a place in us that remembers this, beneath the slumbering mind, and begins to initiate an unraveling of what has caused us to forget. Perhaps it inspires us to truly understand what this means, to experience it directly for ourselves. Perhaps it makes us ask, “What would my life be like if this were true for me?”

Meanwhile, it’s important to have healthy ways to respond when you find yourself minding what happens. First, you’re in good company. Virtually everyone in the world has times when they mind what’s happening. People in pain, people who are afraid, people who are lonely or grieving, people who can’t fall asleep, people witnessing violence or injustice . . . most of them mind what’s happening. So here are some options.

Option one is to suffer. Highly unpleasant but very popular. On rare occasions the suffering becomes a portal to spiritual awakening, but a tolerable degree of suffering is less likely to provoke such a catharsis and more likely to simply function as a chronic degradation.

Option two is to change something external. Sometimes this is possible and useful, other times it isn’t. If you mind that you’re getting bitten by mosquitos, you could put on bug spray. If, on the other hand, you mind that your government is corrupt, you may not be in a position to significantly improve it, especially if you have a busy life and don’t plan to change careers.

This is where the famous Serenity Prayer by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr is useful – “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” If you can recognize what cannot be changed by you, it may be easier to let go of the belief that they are your business. If you’re not currently engaged with it, don’t mind it. That is, don’t give your mind to it.

Option three is to change something internal. There are several sub-options here. The first is to deny that you mind what you mind. The main way we do this is through willful ignorance. We often employ willful ignorance as a coping mechanism simply because we can’t take care of all the things that concern us in the world.

For instance, I have a 60-year-old truck that I take out occasionally to get bales of hay for our alpacas, and the exhaust stinks. I know I’m putting carbon emissions into the atmosphere, and I haven’t yet found a way to fix it. So, I have to put it out of my mind (i.e., willfully become ignorant of how I am contributing to climate change) in order to lessen the amount of guilt I feel about it. It’s a mediocre way of dealing with minding what happens.

Another way to deny that you mind what’s happening is through spiritual bypass. That is, you employ a spiritual ideal you haven’t actually achieved as a way of falsely transcending your issues. Welwood explained it as using “spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.”[i]

I think we can agree that denial isn’t the best answer. As a band-aid, it never truly resolves the unsettled feeling that erodes your peace and infringes on your presence.

Another way of changing something internal is to consciously, sincerely explore your relationship with what you mind. Don’t say “I don’t mind” when you do mind. Be honest with yourself. And don’t say, “I shouldn’t mind” when you do mind. Consider this alternative: I do mind, but I am determined not to argue with or depart from reality.

Here we come to what I believe Krishnamurti actually meant by “I don’t mind what happens.” I don’t believe he meant that nothing could bother him. I think he meant that, regardless of what happens, he doesn’t see reality as wrong or feel it should be different. If someone were to come at him with a knife, perhaps he would have found himself knocking the knife out of their hand. This wouldn’t mean that he “minds what happens,” only that he chose to act. Whether he acted or remained entirely passive to an attack, either one would affect the course of events, so neither constitutes “minding” more than the other.

But let’s bring this back to an application for someone who hasn’t yet realized the absolute truth of not minding what happens. First, there is a difference between minding what is currently occurring here and now versus minding something that is neither. The latter is what I mean by “departing from reality.” If it’s not currently happening, see if you can bring yourself back into your present experience, and notice how this affects whether you mind what is happening (here and now).

There is also a difference between minding something but accepting it versus minding something and insisting that it shouldn’t be happening. “Shouldn’t be happening” is an exercise in futility. It’s an argument against reality. Removing your resistance from the equation (to something that can’t be changed by internal resistance anyway) reduces your suffering. This doesn’t mean you don’t care or that you’re giving up.

Jesuit priest and author Anthony de Mello defined enlightenment as absolute cooperation with the inevitable. This is the opposite of resistance and a necessary first step before diving deeper into your relationship with what you mind.

Diving in is acceptance in action. Generally, you must set aside time and space for this. It entails meeting the inner discord with sincerity and being willing to see, hear, feel, and understand it in its entirety. It also entails a willingness to recognize how the conflict degrades you and limits your freedom.

Try to maintain an attitude of openness and innocence throughout the process. This work can unravel long-held beliefs and patterns of constraint. It can enable you to move forward with constructive action, if that’s what you choose. And it can facilitate an expansion from your relativistic thinking about the issue to a more transpersonal perspective. This may not always get you to a place where you can honestly say, “I don’t mind what’s happening,” but it will bring greater clarity and peace to your experience of it.

Be well,

Peter

© 2022 by Peter Borten

[i] Fossella, T., 2011. Human Nature, Buddha Nature: An Interview with John Welwood. [online] Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Available at: <https://tricycle.org/magazine/human-nature-buddha-nature/> [Accessed 27 April 2022]. Welwood cautioned, “When we are spiritually bypassing, we often use the goal of awakening or liberation to rationalize what I call premature transcendence: trying to rise above the raw and messy side of our humanness before we have fully faced and made peace with it.”

Can We Be Misguided By Spiritual Truths?

There’s a well-known spiritual quote from philosopher and teacher Jiddhu Krishnamurti. The story goes that he was speaking to a group of students (who saw him as an enlightened master), and he whispered, “Do you want to know my secret?” At this, the room fell silent and everyone leaned forward. Then he continued, “I don’t mind what happens.”

What I like about this idea is that it’s simple; it speaks of a state of transcendence of the ego and unshakable peace. But as an expression of absolute spiritual truth, it also lends itself to spiritual bypassing and illusions about spirituality.

The tricky thing about Krishnamurti’s statement is that he was presumably speaking not from his ego but from an expanded state of consciousness, his higher Self. Thus, while not minding what happens was his outlook from this state, it’s not necessarily the path that got him there.

In Krishnamurti’s case, he went through a series of spontaneous, often painful experiences over many years that caused an opening of his consciousness. That’s not something we can replicate at will. So what can we garner from this “secret”?

It’s a good opening to a discussion on how we relate to absolute spiritual truths while existing in a world of relativity. Even among non-dual spiritual traditions (meaning, all the world is considered to be an expression of one great Being, and separation is an illusion), there is often a distinction made between the Source in an absolute sense (which is formless) and the many forms it takes in the relative world.

In the realm of the relative, which is where the majority of human minds dwell, relativity directs nearly every aspect of our lives. For instance, when we say something is good, we’re usually not coming from the experience that the universe is fundamentally Good, and therefore all of its expressions are imbued with that same essence of goodness. What we mean is that things are good relative to some other way they could be. Thus, we’re directed toward things that we perceive as better than our other options and away from things that seem worse. And absolute spiritual truths – like “the universe is fundamentally good” – are simply lofty concepts to most people. We do get glimpses of them though (as I’ve written about in my articles on “gaps” in the dominant egocentric state), and these often fuel a drive for spiritual awakening.

People who have gone through a certain form of spiritual awakening (what’s sometimes referred to as enlightenment, liberation, or moksha) often describe it as an experience of becoming perpetually conscious of the absolute. This doesn’t make the relative disappear, but the awareness of the undying oneness that unifies all apparent differences enables them to play in relativity without the “high stakes” feeling – and the anxiousness and drama that go with it – that most humans experience. This is why it’s referred to as liberation, which can be a very appealing notion to anyone who wants to be happy.

So, apparently from this state, Krishnamurti said, “I don’t mind what happens” because, in an absolute sense, nothing is ever wrong. Nor is there such a thing as tragedy or victory. To win a race just means one part of the Source crossed the finish line before another part of the same Source (or God beat God, if you prefer that name). Likewise, the death of any given expression of the Source is akin to a red blood cell dying and being recycled into a new blood cell; the Whole has lost nothing in the process.

It’s important to recognize that an absolute spiritual truth is different from an uplifting life principle or a good piece of advice. If someone told you their “secret” is “Focus on the good” or “Don’t sweat the small stuff” or “Practice gratitude” or “Don’t take anything personally” you could immediately adopt it and start living it. But to a person who hasn’t realized and directly experienced it, an absolute truth isn’t actionable in the same way. And in relative terms, the absolute may make no sense at all.

Imagine that a dog is biting your leg and you think to yourself, “I’m going to be spiritual about this. What did Krishnamurti say? Oh yeah, I don’t mind what happens. I guess I’d better breathe through this. Whew, that’s a lot of blood. Do I just let him keep gnawing? I don’t mind. I don’t mind. I don’t mind. If I call 9-1-1, does that constitute “minding”?” I doubt many people would take an unrealized spiritual truth to this extent, but as you can imagine, it’s possible to get into some trouble this way.

In my next article (see “It’s Okay to Mind What Happens”) we’ll try to find the usefulness in statements of absolute truth and we’ll talk about what to do if you do mind what happens. Meanwhile, I always love to hear what readers think of these spiritual explorations.

Be well,

Peter

© 2022 by Peter Borten

How to Be Resilient

Almost every year I witness the same tragedy in Boulder. The daffodils emerge, the trees put forth tender leaves and delicate flowers, and my heart swells with the natural resurrection of life. Then we get a snowstorm and all the new growth dies. So much for spring.

But wait! As the snow melts, I’m reminded that these plants are hardier than I thought. The flowers return, more leaves grow, and it turns out they’re all the tougher for the hardship.

It’s tempting to hope for a life without hardship. But it’s neither realistic nor good for us. We’re better served by resilience. Resilience isn’t just the ability to withstand hardship, it’s the ability to utilize hardship as a means for growth. Let’s look into why we need it and how to build it.

Modern humans were already epidemically stressed. Now we’re pandemically stressed. Even if you’re healthy, you’re not scared of coronavirus, you don’t feel especially affected by what’s going on, it’s still likely that you’re going through a heightened state of nervous system arousal to adapt to these unique circumstances. And of course, if you are worried about your health or finances or loved ones or the overall state of the world, then you’re in an even more heightened state of arousal.

We can attribute today’s common usage of the word “stress” to an endocrinologist named Hans Selye who first described how organisms respond to chronic stress in what he dubbed the General Adaptation Syndrome. Most of us are going through this syndrome right now.

Here’s how it works. When we first encounter a stressor, we enter the “alarm phase.” The system is temporarily shocked, our body produces stress hormones, the nervous system gets more vigilant, and our fundamental homeostasis is compromised. Next, if the stressor persists, we enter the “resistance phase” in which the body/mind makes adaptations to manage the ongoing burden. We may feel like we’re getting used to it, but we’re actually chronically hyper-aroused and this demands a lot of energy. Eventually, if the stress continues, we enter the third phase: “exhaustion” – we just can’t maintain the constant adaptation and things start to collapse (we get sick, fatigued, anxious, depressed, etc.).

We’re probably hanging out in that resistance phase, but may get repeatedly re-alarmed when we hear more bad news. Some of us are already in exhaustion. What can we do?

In his popular 1994 book, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky explains why it’s different for animals than it is for humans. They’re exposed to episodic stress – like the appearance of a predator. They react, the stressor goes away, and they return to a relaxed state and replenish from the toll of the stress. In contrast, the chronic stress we experience is taxing without any breaks.

As I see it, true resilience doesn’t just mean being able to stay in the resistance phase for a long time without getting exhausted. That might be evidence of resilience, but it could just be the sign of a strong constitution. Indeed, one definition of resilience is simply “toughness.” But the definition I find more compelling is this: “the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape.” I interpret “into shape” to mean the restoration of a state of fundamental wellbeing (not a state of active resistance).

To me, resilience entails returning to balance or freedom not just after, but throughout, an experience of hardship. I like the word freedom because it implies that we’re not fighting, not pushing back. Instead, at least for a moment, we’re liberated from our stress. In my opinion the single most powerful way to achieve this kind of resilience is through a daily meditation practice.

A few years ago, the American Psychological Association released a guidance document on the mental health impacts of climate change.[i] It’s impressively holistic in its scope. One section offers great suggestions for building resilience, and I think they apply well to the current pandemic. Although these strategies we’re meant to be introduced by counselors, I believe you can apply them on your own (and reach out to us if you need further guidance).

  1. Build belief in your own resilience. Be compassionate with yourself. Notice all the challenging times you’ve already managed.
  2. Foster optimism. Actively reframe your circumstances. Stick to the facts. Choose to be an optimist – it’s a simple habit of thinking and habits can be changed.
  3. Cultivate active coping and self-regulation. Pay attention to your thoughts and behaviors. Look for solutions and help – there are so many good resources available to you.
  4. Find a source of personal meaning. Do you believe in a higher power? A personal mission? A mandate to serve the world and share your gifts? What’s the most important thing to you? Prioritize that.
  5. Boost personal preparedness. Managing crises holistically isn’t a matter of either wearing a mask or believing we’ll all get through this. Hedge your bets. Build resilience, stay positive, and also do some common sense things to enable you to better weather the unexpected.
  6. Support social networks. We need connection to other humans, not just for the psychological support, but the material support (e.g., toilet paper) too!
  7. Connect with parents, family, and other role models. While we generally recognize the powerful stabilizing force the family structure can provide for children, it can be equally valuable for adults. If family isn’t available or doesn’t function that way for you, make your own family and find other role models.
  8. Maintain connections to one’s culture. This is especially important for refugees and new immigrants, but it can also be a valuable constant – and source of stories of resilience – for everyone.

I’d like to close with two more. First, mindfulness practices build resilience, specifically in that “springing back into shape” way. Mindfulness puts us firmly in the here-and-now – the truth – over and over and over and over throughout every day. Second, finding ways to serve also “springs us back” because it’s our nature to love, to care, and to offer oneself to the greater Whole to which we all belong. We’re naturally oriented in this way when we feel free. Therefore, even if you don’t feel altogether free, acting as if you’re free – by finding ways to help others rather than being hyperfocused on your own survival – will facilitate that freedom.

So much love,

Peter

© 2020 by Peter Borten

[i] https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/03/mental-health-climate.pdf

Are We Likely to Be Invaded by a Hostile Alien Species This Christmas?

This is a time of year when the dream of world peace comes up more than usual. Maybe, despite the ever growing array of plastic gift options and people stabbing each other to be first in the door to Walmart on Black Friday, we still “get it” on some level. We get that stuff – and more stuff – isn’t the source of that warm fuzzy feeling we associate with the holidays. It comes instead from a connection with non-plastic entities.

We think to ourselves, This – here – all of us together, laughing, playing, singing, watching the children – this is what’s really important. And maybe, if we’re so inclined, it occurs to us that if the world could somehow experience this en masse and in a sustained way, then, well, it would change everything.

We have a limited capacity to focus on warmth and fuzziness before the new year arrives and losing weight eclipses world peace, so I’ll get to the burning question on everyone’s mind: Will we be invaded by a hostile alien species that wants to plunder our natural resources and make us slaves?

Before I answer that question, let’s consider what world peace might look like. World peace, as I see it, would be predicated upon everyone’s allowing themselves the undiluted, unconditional experience of love. It’s entirely our choice, completely under our control, absolutely our birthright … even, some would say, our very identity. There’s only one thing in the way of the pure, abiding experience of love – our minds.

I won’t pretend that – despite the insubstantiality of the mechanisms our minds use to restrict the love in our lives – they represent an easy hurdle. We would need a miraculous healing of minds to have world peace. But, if you’ve been paying attention, perhaps it seems to you, as it does to me, that we’re closer than ever to understanding what such healing would entail.

If we all felt love and peace, think of what we might do and what we might prioritize. First, fear would disappear and the greed that it engenders would go away with it. Our drive toward acquisition would dramatically decline. What, really, would a happy, peaceful populace want?  To create and admire things of beauty, such as music, art, nature, and life itself? To help and serve our habitat and planet-mates? To share love with other humans? To solve the world’s problems? To explore and grow? These all seem likely possibilities, especially when we look back at the kinds of pursuits the saints and sages of history engaged in.

What might be possible without massive amounts of money, energy, resources, and life being expended on defense and offense? What would be possible without the need to develop,  manufacture, distribute, and consume everything we use – from drugs to distractions – because we don’t have enough love in our lives? What would be possible without any financial or political agendas hampering scientific progress?

I believe we would feed each other. We could tackle world hunger with our brains tied behind our backs. We would solve the energy crisis. By focusing some of our freed up ingenuity, we would quickly develop clean, sustainable sources of energy. We would make giant advances in medicine. We would explore the world with renewed fascination. And perhaps we would embark on space travel for the mere adventure of it.

I don’t think these predictions are grossly off the mark. Humans are impressive. But if we’re pondering what could be possible with fear and greed out of the way, we also have to see what is not possible if things stay the same.

Considering that we can’t even get a human onto one of the two nearest planets (Venus or Mars), we must realize that our chances of going outside our solar system (to say nothing of leaving our galaxy) are exquisitely bad. We would have to be unified and focused on this goal, and realistically, that would only come after a long period of unification and focus on our domestic needs.

So, we’re getting close to the answer now. It seems to me that only a culture that has already achieved world peace could even begin to make the kinds of advances that would be necessary for intergalactic space travel. And such a culture would have overcome the need or inclination to enslave and plunder.

Therefore, my friends, we need not worry about being invaded by a hostile alien species this Christmas! And with our minds now at ease, perhaps we can spend the remainder of this holiday season meditating on questions such as these: Do I believe world peace is possible? What stands in the way of my allowing myself as much love as I want? What might happen if I forgave myself and the world for everything? Can I let go of restrictions in my mind and body that impede my experience of love? What sorts of additional questions – or answers – can you come up with? Share them with us in the comments section. 

Happy holidays and be well,

Peter

© 2013 by Peter Borten

A Free Pile of Presents Just for You

During a particularly hard break-up in my 20s, a friend advised me, “The more present you are during this process, the bigger the present you’ll get out of it.” And though I barely understood what that meant, I gave it a try and an odd thing happened. I saw that I was choosing the big, dramatic grieving process I was going through. And that meant it was optional.

In The Art of Presence, Eckhart Tolle says, “Through thought you cannot possibly grasp what presence is.” But he gives some clues to point us in the right direction. He says it’s there, “when you’re not thinking about the last moment, or looking to the next one.” And he uses phrases like “a state of relaxed alertness” and “a spacious stillness,” to describe it.

Thich Nhat Hanh said, “The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence.”

Our presence is tremendously rare and hugely valuable. Especially in this age of epidemic distraction, it’s increasingly difficult and uncommon to choose a voluntary time-out from technology, data, and our own mental analysis. But unlike the artificial value of a coin that accidentally got stamped with a head on both sides, our presence can do for us what nothing else can. And we can make it more abundant by simply choosing it. 

Although it may not put food in our belly, most other problems disappear with presence. The need to fix or relive the past disappears. The need to avoid certain unwanted events in the future disappears. Even if were working on something now that will benefit us in the future, with our presence, we work on it now in order to work on it now. And that’s enough.

The allure of distraction, which so often threatens our presence, dissolves when we practice being present. Do you know the word obviate? I like to write using words that almost everyone understands, but there’s only one word I can think of that means “to make unnecessary,” and that word is obviate. Learning to deepen our presence obviates the urge for distraction and mental departure from our current reality.

With presence, we perceive all kinds of intelligence and detail that we’re otherwise deaf and blind to. We know when to eat and when to stop eating. We know how to move our body in a way that doesn’t cause pain or injury. Our work becomes more interesting. Our relationships become healthier. We listen better and we feel heard.

With two kids, my presence is requested almost incessantly. I hear the word Papa at least 100 times a day. Often, I hear it ten or more times in quick succession. We all yearn for someone’s total presence with us. These are the moments of connection between what is the same in both of us. Presence uncovers what’s real in this moment. And that’s refreshing, exciting, and affirming.

When we’re all so busy that we see time as a commodity, it can seem that giving our presence to someone else is like giving away our treasure. But are we actually giving something away?

Of course not. When we “give” our presence we gain the present. To withhold our presence means both we and the other person miss out.

So, how can you learn to be more present? It takes practice. If you’re new to this, I don’t recommend making a goal like, “I’m going to be more present from now on.” I don’t want to discourage you, I just want you to be realistic about what you’re up against – a lifetime of habits and a sea of tantalizing distractions.

Try something a bit less ambitious, such as this: Once a day, as you begin some activity – whether it’s buying groceries, playing Candyland, eating a meal, and listening to a friend’s problems – select this activity as an exercise in presence. In your mind, identify what exactly you’re doing – “I’m vacuuming the floor” – and devote yourself to that. Don’t run away in the middle of the activity. This means don’t pick up your phone, don’t depart in your mind to explore other thoughts and ideas, don’t visit the past, don’t anticipate what’s next, don’t judge. Just dwell in the present. Be saturated by the present. Feel everything. Accept everything. And let each next moment come.

Over time, quicker than you might think, you’ll start regaining your attention. You’ll be able to focus on something for more than five seconds. You’ll begin to yearn for this, which will make your practice much easier. And as you start willingly selecting more and more moments to be completely present, you’ll experience an unending offering of presents.

Be well,

Peter

© 2016 by Peter Borten

Bondage and Discipline

workout

Getting good at nearly anything requires a certain amount of discipline. At the very least, you need the discipline to practice it on a regular basis. You’d expect this for learning violin or karate, but you might not think you’d need it in order to have a peaceful and positive mind.

And perhaps you don’t. But if it’s a struggle for you to maintain a clear, lighthearted, optimistic outlook – if you find yourself often in bondage to a negative mind that has taken the driver’s seat – I would bet that your mind could use some discipline.

Around age 18, I discovered Carlos Castaneda’s books. In case you’re unfamiliar, Castaneda was a doctoral student at UCLA in the 1960s and 70s who studied the use of magical practices and psychedelic herbs by the Yaqui Indians of northern Mexico. After some detective work, and a few meetings with charlatans, he managed to track down the real deal: a secretive shaman named don Juan Matus. Castaneda was bumbling and boastful, and he tried to impress the shaman with his minimal knowledge of these practices.

Don Juan wasn’t fooled, but he kept Castaneda around because he saw in him the makings of a shaman or nagual. In a relationship similar to that of Daniel and Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid (but much stranger), don Juan put Carlos through rigorous trainings of body and mind, and fed him a variety of powerful hallucinogenic plants.

All of this was fascinating and mind-opening for me at the time, but there was one element of the training that, while less bizarre, was actually more poignant. Don Juan was intent on teaching Carlos to discipline his mind, and whenever Carlos became anxious or depressed, the shaman would admonish him to stop indulging in his mind’s melodrama. As my teenage self read the word indulge, it really cut through me. My late teens had been full of plenty of melodrama, and I couldn’t help wondering if don Juan would have considered it indulgence. It certainly hadn’t felt like I had any choice in the matter, but what if I did?

Thus began a lifetime’s journey to understand the difference between ME and my mind. To discover my power . . . and lose sight of it . . . and rediscover it . . . and lose sight of it . . . and rediscover it. And because I decided to go into medicine, I’ve had the opportunity to witness and assist many others through the same exploration. Central to the process is the recognition of choice. As it pertains to discipline, this means being disciplined to remember you have a choice and being disciplined to repeatedly exercise this power.

When you suggest to someone in the throes of anxiety or depression that there is an element of choice in their psychological experience, it’s not uncommon for them to feel guilty, offended, and defensive. Because the implication, of course, is that they’ve been making things bad for themselves – that it’s their fault.

But the notion of fault can only serve to degrade the process. While the recognition of choice – AKA free will – is empowering, fault is disempowering. It leads us to think things like, “Why would I do this to myself? Why can’t I stop it?” The answer to those questions is, respectively, confusion and habit. Responding to feelings of fault (blame) with forgiveness and compassion for oneself will neutralize it, and this, too, requires discipline.

Throughout, the overarching practice of discipline is to pay attention to where your mind is going, and to not let it get away with taking you to dark or fearful places. And Mr. Miyagi, don Juan, and any Zen monk would probably add, practice the discipline of being deliberate about everything you do.

The life of a Zen monk, if fact, can teach us a lot about discipline. Discipline is not necessarily army boot camp or the One-Grape-a-Day Diet. It doesn’t imply restriction or deprivation as much as a continuous application of attention. (Our attention is more scattered than ever, due to the many things with screens in our lives.) Zen monks are, by and large, carefree and light of heart. And this results from prioritizing what is here and now, what is real, what is precious, over the moody demands of a wayward mind. Such a practice actually works best when guided by love – when you simply care too much about yourself to let your consciousness be degraded by mental bondage.

Be well,

Peter

© 2017 by Peter Borten