Cluster Call September 10, 2009
As the Cluster Call begins we are poised over a sea of possibilities ready to jump in. Do we dare? I ask for input from other people on the call, I want them to direct where it goes and I will lead them in the direction they wish. Nancy speaks up. Nancy has been a world class runner, fastest woman in the country. She is an enneagram one: driven. She lives with an inordinate intensity. She speaks from that place as well. Listen in as Nancy, without possibly knowing it, gives the call direction.
EC-09-10-09-01-Or I will die.mp3
Click track name to listen In:
This simple manta added to any phrase makes life, love and living more serious than it is. It is the thing the mind says when it wants its own way. The mind says, "...or I will die." It says, "...or I will die," when it is upset, when it is threatened, when it might not get its own way. It says, "...or I will die," when it is the least bit off balance and it doesn't care what phrase comes before it. It can say ,"Take the trash out, or I will die." Or, "I have to get out of this place (marriage), or I will die."
It says, "...or I will die," often and knows that it can direct your status with that simple phrase. While you may not be aware of your mind saying, "...or I will die," under the surface below the level of your attention this constant threat is looming.
Luckily, the mantra, "...or I will die," indicates that the mind is near wits end and there are much deeper forces at work. If the mind is throwing out the death hook, then things must be much closer to "real" than usual. If you have to have the piece of blueberry pie or you will die, enjoyment disappears whether you get the pie or not. Unwinding and exploring the Manta add-on "... or I will die", opens the door to greater lightness and to deeper wiser parts of ourselves. Let's unwind it!
EC-09-10-09-02-Composing yourself.mp3
You re-construct yourself each moment. The extent to which you build yourself newly indicates how close to the present you are able to nuzzle. The present always offers an all new you, even if the new you resembles the old one. Only by leaving the present would you know that you are still you. In the present you are just you. Getting closer to the present reveals, naturally, who you are. Anything that you presume about yourself from the past is biased and brutal, especially to those tougher moments, those moments in which you fell short or panicked or didn't make the grade. Discovering the process of creating yourself each moment makes each moment an entertaining treat no matter who you turn out to be. As the past melts away, revealing itself to be fiction, you bask as the new you--pure possibility and light.
EC-09-10-09-03-Building yourself.mp3
We have been exploring what composes us. A primary building block, of us, is a unit composed of a complaint, then a behavior in reaction to that complaint, then a payoff and a cost for having the complaint and behavior associated together. (Diagram 1) We have been unwinding this basic unit to reveal who we are. Nancy, it seems, by observing a much deeper thus less preferential behavior, unwound one of these. She used her husband Ed to help her open a precious door to see herself relating to Ed and to herself without all kinds of preconceived ideas about who she is, who Ed is, and who they might be together. She instantly cleaned the slate revealing greater presence and much greater acceptance of who she is in this moment, and this moment and this moment.
We build ourselves each moment. Mostly we do so, consistently, by using spare pieces from the moment before. By doing this we do make ourselves consistent, often confusing consistency with comfort or safety. But we also bore ourselves nearly to death. You can build yourself newly each moment. That is what we are playing with here. There are many aspects of who we are that we can't experience without coming closer to NOW. Closer to NOW is dicey, closer to NOW is Jazz.
EC-09-10-09-04-Adding importance.mp3
You can begin a search and appreciation for the "...or I will die" in your own life. Doing so will have your attention move to the growing edge where it is inspired each moment with at least curiosity and possibly self-realization.
Jennifer is on the pursuit of "...or I will die" and she immediately runs into resistance from her mind. This resistance is generalized and shows up as an overall mood. It is so generalized that she can't do anything about it. As an enneagram 6, Jennifer is so dependent on her thinking that to question it or to move into her body looks like death. The "...or I will die" is superficially attached to each of her thoughts directing her to take that thought seriously. We are a culture who tends to live in our heads, thus we have to assume and agree that thinking is important. Jennifer reveals this clearly.
A vitally important thing for all of us is to teach our mind to mind. What happens when you say "no" to your mind? Listen in to find out how to interact with your mind effectively.
EC-09-10-09-05-Teaching the mind NO.mp3
The previous interaction with Jennifer is really interesting. We used her relationship with her kids as a metaphor for her relationship with herself. She wants to impose things on the kids and force them to do her bidding. She finally gets this. On the next track she immediately assumes that things would be better, life would be better, if she got this more quickly. In other words her complaint about her kids reveals a complaint about herself. We just won't give ourselves a break. We just won't be nice to ourselves. We keep on trying to train ourselves by having part of ourselves, usually our mind, dominate the rest of us. We do this by imposing, "Do this, or you will die." It doesn't matter what you fill in the "Do this..." with.
Listen to how quickly Jennifer is hard on herself. Rather than celebrating that she is getting what she is getting or that she is alive, she beats herself for not learning faster. The effect of this is to punish herself for learning. She turns on herself so fast and so practiced that she doesn't even notice she is beating herself up with her mind.
EC-09-10-09-06-Brutality and brilliance -horizontal and vertical.mp3
This track dives into vertical and horizontal. Vertical, the less popular of the two, is all about who you are; moving vertically is about you becoming someone else, not some other person but more or less of yourself, more or less true to who you really are. Horizontal is all about more, better and different; moving horizontally is about altering the features of something without altering the thing itself.
The symbol for the relationship between vertical and horizontal is the cross. That symbol is the meeting of the two. Most of our lives are spent modifying things, changing things, dealing with the superficial features of life. This is all horizontal. You may want to re-listen to track six a few times. There is loads of useful stuff here that you can integrate into every aspect of your life.
EC-09-10-09-07-The Cross and the answer.mp3
The cross is an obvious meeting of vertical and horizontal. Playing with those two and distinguishing between them allows us to use what isn't us as a precious stimulus to discover who we are. Horizontal exploration is vital, it is a bit like a hamster on a wheel but it is useful in grounding ourselves and exploring and enhancing our mundane existence. Vertical is as different from horizontal as it can be. It reveals who you are as you change, dance and flow with the universe. It reveals change to not only be your best friend but actually to be who you are. Horizontal play reveals the content of life while vertical is all about process.
Most people attend to horizontal movement, thinking that who they are remains the same or perhaps changes if they lose weight, get new clothes or an education. All of these are horizontal unless accompanied by vertical play. Anything in and of itself is neither vertical nor horizontal, it is only in relation to a human being. This is because we are the only creature able to discover who we are and the only critter who has forgotten who he or she is.
The myth of only horizontal is the simple materialist philosophy that results in the belief that if you buy the new table you will then be happy. When you think that if you buy the new table you will be happy you are setting yourself up for a fall. There will be enough falls without setting yourself up for them.
EC-09-10-09-08-Summary and the new you.mp3
Remaining present for even a fraction of a moment longer puts the mind on notice that its mischief is not only likely to soon be discovered but it will also soon be loved. Variation of attention span, the length of time you remain present, requires a quorum of aspects of you. The antics of the mind are created by typically poling on the mind, thus they are the votes of very few aspects of yourself. Remaining present reveals that the status quo is much shorter than it appears to be by your remaining present a fraction of a second longer.
With more presence you can focus more attention on the antics of the mind as it single-mindedly tries to solve and fix problems it has created by calling them problems. The organic result of this process is the discovery that not only is everything around you entertaining but you are also infinitely entertaining.
EC-09-10-09-09-Exploring levels.mp3
There is very little appreciation for levels in our culture. We are multi-level creatures thinking in a flat world. This has us stumble and fall constantly like a blind person running through a very uneven piece of land. Ironically, it is the unevenness of the terrain that has us thrilled to be alive. And we continually live in a delusion of level.
What happens on one level in us shows up very differently on another level. We can only solve a problem by moving to a different level than the one on which the problem was created. We can only learn to live with any aspect of life by remaining on the same level. Lyla has a pattern of continually giving up several levels. She does this to say that everything is okay. When she does this she loses herself and loses her power. She misses the opportunity to sit with things as they are and reinforces her basic belief that things are getting better. (See journey and destination clip.) They aren't , thank goodness, because better is just a horizontal mentafiction intended to cover up the very lack of control, the discovery of which, will set us free.
EC-09-10-09-10-Find your or I will die.mp3
Find your own, "...or I will die." When you do you will have discovered the edge between mind and body. That beautiful place where you can reach more deeply into yourself and find your heart. You will, at this point discover that you are much more than you "thought" you were or could be. You will discover that you have been riding a wave and that any power you thought you had actually came not from the aspects of you that you "know," but from much deeper parts of you that are engaged in very different business than anything your mind can perceive but that your mind can learn to appreciate.
EC-09-10-09-11-Discovering your self.mp3
Thanks for listening. I invite you to listen again. Each time you listen you will discover new things to explore. You will move vertically with each new listening making the next listening NEW.
I invite you to join a cluster call. On the calls you will have a chance to meet and play with peers. You will enhance every aspect of your life and have a darned good time doing so. Please join us!
