Dualism gone good

One of my recent fav quotes came from a dear friend who emailed me, "I don't really understand this "dualism" thing you talk about, but I get it that it's a bad thing."

Ain't necessarily so. If all truly is one, then a little dualism here and there ain't all bad - even if we see a unity underlying it.

I see a spectrum of dualistic responses, here through the lens of "It feels like something is going wrong."

1. A mis-perceived dualism - it looks like something is going wrong, when this really misses the point.
   
   e.g. when Don, the administrator at Jubilee, called me yesterday morning to say that there was a conflict around rooms for my weekly Wednesday Life Lived More Deeply ongoing group (http://www.llmdongoing.blogspot.com/), and that I would have to be out of our room by 6:45 p.m. - when we are scheduled to end at 7 - that initially felt to me like a threat, an encroachment on our turf. It didn't take me long, though, to make the connection that almost every week somebody in our group needs to leave early. What if it might actually be better timing if we started a little earlier and ended a little earlier? This was a connection I never had made - and might not have, for a while at least, without this "conflict". That night I polled the group and all but one person said they would prefer this earlier end time, and no one had a problem with starting earlier. I had had an emotional reaction that this was a "bad thing" - that something was going wrong. But I was wrong.
   
2. An accurate dualism - something actually is going wrong.
   
   e.g. When you're crossing the street and suddenly a car is coming at you, there's a realistic basis for feeling like something is going wrong. This is not a time, unless you are some extraordinarily developed ninja, for blending your energy with that car - it's a time for keeping that car the hell separate.
   
   e.g. the other morning, as I was driving into town from my place in the country, I became aware of having judgments about the way the guy in front of me was driving. Now, I am prone to judgmental thoughts about the way people drive, and I thought, "There you go again - you and your judgmental mind." Well, my assessment that something was going wrong in my thought process turned out to be wrong - because something was actually going wrong in the way this guy was driving. The further I followed him, he was totally all over the road - frequently weaving into the oncoming lane. And he had no license plate. I came to the conclusion that his driving was in some way impaired - and called the highway patrol.
   
3. A dualism ignored or denied - something is going wrong, but we aren't seeing it.
   
   E.g. a friend asked me the other evening, "Hey, what finally came of those medical tests you had a ways back?" It was only at that moment that I realized that I had not told one person about the repeat biopsy I was having the next day - I had not even considered it. I really didn't have a tremendous amount of anxiety about it. I was pretty sure the results would be fine (which they did turn out to be) - but I did have some anxiety, some concern that something might be going wrong. But I was ignoring it, denying it - oh, let's just say it, suppressing it. My friend made the great suggestion that I send out an email to my handful of closest friends, alerting them of this procedure - so I could have a chance to get some support around it. I had had a little, unacknowledged concern that something might be going wrong, which had some basis in reality - and it was valuable for me to finally acknowledge this, but I had erred on the side of not paying attention to it.
   
   e.g. This pattern of not ever realizing that this is a situation in which I might want to ask for support is a very strong one in me. Something is kinda going wrong there, in this stuck pattern, but I tend not to notice it, which makes it harder to change it.
   

The thing that can most powerfully help us weave our way through this maze of false duality/accurate duality/ignored duality is present-moment awareness - a primary tool for which is to get grounded in our bodies.

This spectrum of dualities also applies to the related question, "Should we try to be positive all the time?" For me, this kind of "trying", this attempt to rigidly control the contents of our consciousness, just complicates our lives - as well as making it hard for us to perceive the genuine threats or problems around us and inside us.

So, does all this indicate, then, that "dualism is the truth - just the way things are"? Not to me - I still believe and more-and-more experience an underlying unity in all of life, including some of these things that are apparently "going wrong". I may not always see the connections - but I do know, for instance, that the way my friend punctured my excessive self-reliance around that medical procedure has put the whole issue of self-care (and asking for help) very much on the front burner for me. And I'm really grateful for that.

Non-resistance - Marita's victory

The other night at my weekly Life Lived More Deeply open group (http://www.llmdongoing.blogspot.com/) we were having a great time, as we almost always do.

When there was about 20 minutes left in our time together, a young woman in the group named Marita (she has read this and has told me that she doesn't mind me using her real name) said, "You know, that last bunch of stuff you just said really doesn't fit for me - it's not how I see my life at all."

I instinctively knew that what she was saying was really important, that - although on the surface she was challenging me and what I was teaching - truly what she was up to was not to challenge me, but simply to speak her truth. I felt not one bit defensive - not even for a moment. Rather, I got excited - excited for her, excited for the possibility of us opening up that meeting, that ongoing group even more.

I asked her to say more about how she saw things differently than what I had just said. And she did - in vivid, specific ways and with lots of enthusiasm. It was clear that speaking her truth was exciting to her - and that she knew that this was OK with me.

At one point she said, "That stuff you just said felt cloudy to me, like just a tangle of words." I simply repeated what she had just said, "'Cloudy, like just a tangle of words.' That's so vivid, so real - you really, truly know how this part of your truth is different from this part of my truth, this aspect of what I am teaching."

She looked triumphant - excited, alive, powerful. She had not triumphed over me - we were completely partners in this bit of exploration. She had triumphed over all the forces in her life that have, in the past, kept her from ferociously defending her own perceptions, her own understanding - her own truth.

She and I were both very happy in that moment. I said to the group, "If I had interrupted this heroic person, if I had challenged her or tried to convince her to see things my way, we could easily have gotten into some kind of verbal tennis match, each of us trying to put the ball past the other one. But we didn't need to do that. She was doing exactly what she came here for - and really exactly what this group is for. We come together to provide space for everyone in the room to find your own truth, right now, in this moment. When you align yourself with your specific, individual truth-in-the-moment - and even more so when you let yourself express this truth - in that moment you are living your life more deeply. You are discovering and being who you really are. We were all lucky to be present when this was happening for Marita - it gives us a little glimpse of how we can become more that exact person who we uniquely are."

I saw Marita four days after our meeting - and we have emailed each other several times in the last few days. She is really on a roll - she is hot! In one email she said, "If you look to the west, you can probably see me shining." And it felt like I could.

It is very exciting to be around someone who is having such a direct and powerful experience of Life Lived More Deeply. I am really grateful to Suzie for demonstrating so clearly the power of truly, courageously being your own self. She is radiating fabulous positive energy - I feel lucky to be around it.

What’s in a Name? Changing Your Handle in Asheville (Majo John Madden, 11/04)

“Everybody in Asheville takes a new name”, Spuds Anderthal said the other day. “It’s an Asheville thing, like the kayaks on top of the SUV’s and the belly-button rings. For example, you”, he said, leaning in towards the lovely young woman who had recently moved into our boarding house, “were not born being called ‘Princess Kamanawanalaia’, right?”

“Yes, I was”, she said, sweetly. “My parents named me after the Polynesian goddess of fertility. I think it’s really me, and when I decide to settle down, I’ll have fabulous babies and give them all Polynesian names.”

“OK, so she’s an exception”, he said, dismissing her, clearly disgusted. Spuds hates to be wrong. “Hippie parents - I’m almost glad my parents were so straight. But you, Mr. Majo”, he then said with a little more edge, looking straight at me. “You still go half the time by ‘John Madden’ – what’s up with that? What did you do, change your name on the bus to Asheville?”

Well, no, actually, I was given this name by a spiritual teacher. I didn’t even bother to say all this to Spuds, who was in no mood to appreciate spiritual subtleties. A few weeks before moving to Asheville, when I did, in fact, feel a tremendous need for a new identity, my computer crashed and I no longer needed a regular dial-up Internet service provider. So, preparing for a reduced income in Asheville, I went to Yahoo for one of these free e-mail accounts that you can access at the library and stuff. The spiritual adept Yahoo did not like any of my submissions for an e-mail handle, including jmmadden@yahoo.com, which used to be my Yahoo address years ago. Finally it came back with its own recommendation, the first two letters of my last and then first name – “Majo”. I liked it, and it has stuck.

Kind of. When I’m feeling “up”, creative, enthusiastic, and/or like a working class hero, it’s easy to say, “People call me Majo”. Even when I first got here and it was mostly a lie, I would think of the couple friends in Chicago who loved the Caribbean sound of it and had actually started to use it with me.

Remember Shane’s first words in the book and movie? “Call me Shane.” We read that book in high school, and Shane was such a cool, mysterious cowboy dude. I just knew, as I was leaving Chicago, that in Asheville - where I wanted to start over and stay kind of mysterious – I would just kind of give people a little tip of my head and say, “Call me Majo.” Cool.

When I’m feeling down, though, not like such a hero at all – more like a washed-up, fat bald guy from the Midwest – “Majo” has a hard time getting over my teeth. In fact, I can’t even picture using it. “Who are you?” I think to myself. “You’re not some cool Afro-Caribbean dude, you’re this corny, neurotic loser from Chicago, who doesn’t even belong here with all these cool, beautiful, fit young mountain-bikers.” So then I almost always introduce myself as John, even though I mostly feel defeated as I do so.

Sometimes it feels kind of energizing and empowering (God, I remember when I didn’t hate that word) to rant, inside myself, out loud, or even out loud with other people around to hear it, “Why should I go through life being called some name that my parents gave me when they didn’t even know me yet, when they had no idea who I was going to turn out to be? I never met my paternal grandfather John – hell, no one in my dad’s family has ever even said anything about him. I wonder if they really didn’t like him, but sacrificed me to his memory to appease their guilt. I have to share this name with zillions of other Johns, hundreds of John Maddens – one of them way more famous than I will ever be – and millions of bathrooms and legions of porta-potties in all parts of the country and maybe world. My old name is stupid and boring and humiliating and I don’t need to keep it!”

And I don’t, except when I just can’t seem to let go of it. Or when it really kind of works for me, like when I’m applying for straight jobs in straight companies. When I was interviewing to be a server at Cracker Barrel (because Spuds and Harry from the rooming house work there), that restaurant manager did not hear nothin’ about no Majo. I did not have my Majo workin’ that day.

When I’m in my cool poet self, I kind of dig it that I am voluntarily relinquishing some of my white male privilege by using a black-sounding name – not as conspicuously black-sounding as Ice-T or anything, but still not normal white. In fact, it’s interesting that the people who seem to have the most trouble with my new name are pretty consistently white men, my own age (58) or older.

It’s almost like I’m breaking the rules of the club, like they are thinking and actually wanting to say, “What are you doing, John? You have a perfectly fine Anglo name with lots of history behind it. You’re not black. You’re a normal white man like we all are – or like we are and like everybody should aspire to be. We are the benchmark. Don’t go cheapening the rich history of appropriate and necessary white male dominance by calling yourself some asinine name that does not come out of your heritage.”

In truth, even when I’m too low energy to initiate as a Majo, I still get a real kick out of someone else calling me this name. I do feel like something new is happening, like I am speaking to and being spoken to as some different part of me – a part that always has popped out from time to time, but which I now want to give more breathing room.

So, call me Majo. Except when you call me John, which most of the time – for now, anyway - is fine, too.

Under My Breath, Life Breathes Me (Majo,12/96)

Under my breath, life breathes me
My breath falters, gets tight
All but goes away
The breath of life rocks me gently
I float on a tiny raft
On an immense, wild ocean
Struggling to stay afloat
To somehow chart a course
In the void, the vastness
Life is the ocean
It holds me and my raft
Were I to lose the raft
This tiny defense that I call home
Plunge naked into life
Drop under the surface
Lose my grip
Over my head in life
With no bearings
Surrender all hope of ever again
Knowing which end is up
Say goodbye to surface life
That has seemed my only realm
Slide down, down, down into life
What then?

An exercise around dualism

Dualism does not need to be combatted or expunged. It ain't going away and even has some useful functions. But we can become more aware and mindful of how it operates on and in and through us - and perhaps even soften it up a little, negotiate it into the background instead of always populating the foreground of our attention.

Below is a little exercise you can do, if it interests you, to maybe boost some of this awareness - and perhaps even encourage a little softening of the vicelike grip of the ego and the dualities it uses to stay in charge. Some of the content below, but particularly the format of this exercise (little cards with wake-up words on them) are taken from A Course in Miracles.

One element (and for me and many others the primary element) of that Course approach is to take the theme for the day and carry it around with you, written on a little card or scrap of paper. There are 365 "lessons" in the Workbook (separate from the Text, which is heavy-duty metaphysical stuff that I could never cop to). These 365, lessons can theoretically be "worked through" in one year.

I tended to stick with the current lesson until i felt that i had sucked not most, but enough-for-then juice out of that little mantra - so i typically carried the same little scrap of paper around with me for 2-5 days. I spent not one year but three working my way through the 365 lessons. Then, because this approach was still feeling so helpful to me and because i knew that there was lots more to glean from these lessons, i turned around and spent another four years working my way through the 365 lessons again.

I did other personal and spiritual growth stuff during those years, but ACIM was kind of my spiritual home base. It definitely changed me. It has in many ways worked its way into my cells, and influences - when i am lucky - most everything i do, say, teach, etc.

I still have tremendously high regard for A Course in Miracles, even while its core principle of love vs. fear feels to me, these days, too dualistic. (I would prefer to experience fear - like all other experiences - as fully as it wants to come, to not try to expunge or even decrease it, but to let that decreasing happen automatically from not resisting it. Fear is not the enemy. When we don't resist it or even try to change it, this non-resistance can directly drop us into the flow of life in the now - and just naturally move us more into a state of love.)

So, with all that interminable intro, here's the exercise (which you can do if that feels right, or blow off if that feels more right to you - this kind of "blowing off" of what just doesn't fit for you can actually be pretty liberating and empowering):

1. Write the five sentences below - or as many of them as you are drawn to, and/or any alternatives that you create - on a 3x5 index card or some other little piece of paper.
   
2. Use one a day, for as long as you feel to stay with this particular thought.
   
3. Ponder the words on the paper - don't try to analyze them (this will really get in the way), but just let them wash over you.
   
4. Carry this little card or scrap of paper with you through the day in a pocket, purse, etc. and refer to it as often as you wish. (ACIM starts with just once at the beginning of the day, then builds, over the 365 lessons, to every five minutes or so!).
   
5. When you do re-read the sentence throughout the day, don't try to directly re-interpret that present moment through this lens, but again just let that thought wash over you - shifting your exerience, thoughts and/or emotions if and how it spontaneously tends to do...or sometimes having no impact that you can consciously notice. Not consciously seeing any particular shift does not mean that this little mantra is not, under the hood, doing some serious mojo on your consciousness.
   
6. Periodically, over the time period when you are playing with this approach, review your current life and notice if all this is having any impact on your perceptions or experiences. Again, do your best to not judge whether this little exercise is "working", whether you are "doing it right", etc. Just notice.
   
7. Lather, rinse, repeat. Play with all this as long as you wish.
   
8. You may feel moved to create new cards based on the experiences or preoccupations that are now present for you in your life.

Here are the five sentences i created for the 1/9/08 meeting of the ongoing Life Lived More Deeply group:

• “I feel like something is going wrong.”
  
• “I don’t understand the meaning of anything I see.” (This is a direct quote from one of the ACIM early lessons.)
  
• “This is interesting.” (An alternative lens from good/bad, danger/not-danger, wrong/right, etc.)
  
• “This is surprising.” (again, a useful alternative way to think about and/or perceive the events and moments of our lives)
  
• “I will start from where I’m at.”
  
• whatever additional or alternative sentences you may create.

Have fun, let go of when that feels right, do not use in front of an open flame, etc. If you are moved to do so, I'd love to hear (as always) anything you wish to share about your experiences with (not so much your opinions of) this little exercise. You can call (828-582-9822) or email me (heymajo@earthlink.net) - or post a comment right here on the blog.

Dualism - part 2 (Majo John Madden, 1/10/08)

Perhaps the core principle of the Life Lived More Deeply approach is non-dualism - learning to notice the pervasive pull of our minds, emotions, even our bodies towards breaking the world up into separate and competing pieces. As we start to progressively realize and experience that all actually is one, and that we are totally connected with all of life, lots starts to change for us.

Dualism has its place. Recognizing the difference between ourselves and others - where does my body end and theirs begin, or where does my energy field (mostly) end - all this is crucial to our well-being and pure survival on the planet. It just doesn't work for us mere mortals to let that oncoming car merge with our energy fields, to embrace our connection with it.

The problem, though, is that our minds still in many ways function as they did in cave man times. Back then it truly was important to keep that danger/non-danger dualistic filter turned on most of the time. But today we truly have more options than that. Our physical survival -or even our emotional survival - are not actually threatened most of the time.

One definition (among many) of the ego is that it is the part of our minds that tends to drive the boat, largely by putting everything into categories or buckets - especially ones like good or bad, right or wrong, pleasure or pain. But the grand-daddy, the form of dualism that most preoccupies our minds, emotions and bodies after all these centuries of evolution is danger/not danger.

Since this particular dualistic filter or focus or preoccupation is not as moment-to-moment crucial or even relevant these days, we could actually turn it off some of the time - or at least move it to the back burner. But we mostly don't know how to do this - and the ego doesn't want to go. It wants to keep running the show - and feels that it needs to, that danger truly is lurking around all the time and that survival still is a crucial every-moment focus.

It's no use to do battle with the ego. It isn't going away - it will be with us as long as we are in a human body. And it would not be in our interest to have it go away. There will always be those speeding cars out there - or people who are physically and/or emotionally dangerous for us.

The trick is to find ways to first observe the ego and the dualistic bucket-dropping that it does so pervasively. Then, as we become more able to notice when the ego is trying to drive the boat, to increase our capacity to negotiate it back to that back burner.

It's not just this particular post which addresses this issue. This dance with dualism is the central focus of this whole blog and accompanying web site, and really of all the teaching, facilitating and coaching that I do.

If you find this whole exploration to be tedious, incomprehensible, too much of a pain in the butt - or just off track froem where you want and/or maybe need to focus your attention - this could be a good time to bail, to maybe wish all of us Life Lived More Deeply explorers well and to get back to business. If this exploration continues to feel useful to you, read on (or not).

There's lots more to come.

"Wrong" - a poem

WRONG (Majo, 7/02)

How do you know when something is going wrong?
How do you know anything?
One can only “know” things that are real.
“Going wrong” is made up.