DAILY THOUGHT

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January 18, 2001

When I interviewed the monk, I asked him, "How do you do it?" He said, "Well, its simple. I tell them that they can only come for ten days and they may never come again, and that the cure will work." I asked him if a lot of religious indoctrination was included in the ten-day program. "No," he said, "none of that. These people aren't suitable for that".

I had heard that many drug experts, media people, and even some congressmen had come from the West, but that none of them could figure out why what he did worked.

The herbal brew clearly wasn't the whole ballgame. As I hung out with him longer I began to realize that his mind was so centered and one-pointed that his being was stronger than their addiction. Somehow he conveyed to those addicts a sense of their non-addiction that was stronger than their addiction. And I saw that his commitment was so total, that he wasn't just someone using a skill. He had died into his work. He was the cure."

Ram Dass and Paul Gorman
"How Can I Help? Stories and Reflections on Service"
p. 96

• January 15, 2001

I played a blank tape on full volume. The mime who lives next door complained.

Steven Wright

This was why the message began to change. This was why the fact that heaven was not separate from earth now became my constant refrain.

What then began to unfold was extraordinary. The current coming from that mystery now began to uncover a view in which earth didn't have to disappear in order to realize heaven. More importantly, realizing heaven was not enough - for now to literally manifest heaven on earth became an unavoidable and irreconcilable necessity if awakening was to be truly profound. This movement - bringing the living fact of heaven, of unity, into time and space, into being-revealed itself to be an evolutionary imperative.

The call to be that which is undivided overtook the significance of the mere discovery of that which is undivided.

Andrew Cohen
An Unconditional Relationship To Life
© 1995 Moksha Press
http://www.andrewcohen.com

• January 12, 2001

That's my understanding that the progression through the life cycle does have something to do with laughter. There is however, of course, a premature way of laughing at our wounds. Fritz Perls once did a beautiful piece of work with a woman who was a natural comic. It was filmed - some of you may have seen it. She was an orchestra conductor, and she could get a laugh so readily all of the time to anything she said. And what you realized was that the laughter was a way not of transcending the pain, but denying the pain and passing it off. And I think we all know when laughter is being used that way.

Sam Keen
"The Power of Stories Workshop"
available from Sounds True
http://www.soundstrue.com

• January 10, 2001

So the study of our personal warfare, which is what tragedy is - me against it - is a story we all have to tell, before we can tell the story of transcendence and peace and laughter.

But you will notice that, after a long time of having told the story of "ain't it awful" . . . you will notice that after you have told that story -- which is an authentic story, don't get me wrong -- there will come a time when, for no good reason other than you have had a good night's sleep, you begin to tell it with humor. And you notice that the pain is still there, but there is transcendence of the pain and laughter. And you'll know that then you begin to go on to another stage of life.

So I think almost all of those stages are necessary.

Sam Keen
"The Power of Stories Workshop"
available from Sounds True
http://www.soundstrue.com

• January 8, 2001

So it follows that in some degree, we are all victims. It follows in some degree that we were dealt a life that we didn't choose -- all of the "You've chosen it all" life philosophies notwithstanding.

Werner Erhart, who popularized one of those "You've chosen it all" things has finally, alas, gotten what he chose. I don't think it was so happy.

But I suspect there is a degree in which even Werner Erhart got things that he didn't choose. Because when we injure and abuse others, its because we come out of a place where we were injured and abused, and we did not choose that injury and abuse. So it means there is that legitimate claim to victimhood that all human beings have as a result of being born human.

It means that in the beginning we have to inhabit those stories, we have to inhabit the story of our pain, and we have to inhabit the story of our struggles.

Sam Keen
"The Power of Stories Workshop"
available from Sounds True
http://www.soundstrue.com

• January 5, 2001

Humor is appropriate after the pain of life is experienced. Just like forgiveness is something that can't authentically happen until you have felt the pain of the injury, and usually until you have communicated the pain of that injury to somebody else.

So in the beginning of telling our stories, its natural enough that we all tell tragic stories. In the beginning we're victims. Now one of the problems of our particular time is that people have discovered the power of being a victim. And there is a great social rush on to discover who can claim the exclusive right to the territory of victimhood.

And so it is right that, in the beginning, we should all discover that degree in which our lives have been fated, in which they have been destined, in which they have been wounded by others. Because it seems to be a fact that most of us came into the world small. And therefore, into a world that we didn't make. The world it seems is not calculated to fulfill all the desires of the human heart, most especially the infantile human heart.

Sam Keen
"The Power of Stories Workshop"
available from Sounds True
http://www.soundstrue.com

• January 3, 2001

That's a little bit like we were in the 1960's when all these young people were into spiritual disciplines to get rid of their egos. They were doing Arika exercises, and tai chi. The only problems was they didn't have any egos yet to get rid of.

The Eastern spiritual disciplines are mostly created for those who are 40 or over. Up until the time you are 40, you should roughly be making your mistakes blindly, ignorantly and unconsciously - largely because they are more fun that way. Many of you who were raised by Calvinist parents, and were therefore condemned to do your adolescence in your 40's know that its more difficult then because you know what you're doing. Its very hard to be spontaneously foolish when you know you're going to pay for it.

Another way of saying it is, "You can't transcend until you have been there." And transcendence of your ego is something that best happens after you have one.

Sam Keen
"The Power of Stories Workshop"
available from Sounds True
http://www.soundstrue.com

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