The Difference – V

by DCH Park

There are several things that come up for me when I am aware of problems and how to deal with them. One thing that becomes apparent very quickly is that what I was taught is not necessarily true. This, in itself, is an incendiary idea. It would seem that schools, churches, indeed, social leaders of every stripe, want me to believe them and do what they tell me to. At least that’s the message that many of them are conveying.

Regardless of what they may get out of my compliance, one thing is clear – I am not choosing for myself as long as I accept what others have chosen for me.

One of the more powerful results to come out of organization theory is that one of the most powerful positions to be in in any organization is to be the one who sets up the options that someone else will choose from. All eyes are deliberately trained on the one who makes the final choice but if that choice is made from a field of options that are all acceptable to you then you are guaranteed to win.

All you have to do to be a guaranteed winner is control the options. In fact, it doesn’t matter who makes the final choice as long as that choice is one of the options that you have set up.

Arguably, this is exactly how society works. People choose from a limited range of options. They limit themselves because that range is all that they allow themselves to see. What they don’t see is that those options are carefully chosen and tailored so that they benefit a few while they claim to benefit many.

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy hound, note that creative types of all stripes have said the same thing down through the ages. The individuals who are most directly responsible for pushing the whole race forward have said the same thing. Whether they have been in the arts or the sciences or have applied their understanding through engineering and business, the central message has always been that it is vitally important to decide for yourself and that as the decider, you owe it to yourself to be aware of what is truly going on. Only by being aware of what is truly going on can you hope to choose from the full range of possibilities, or at least, the fullest range that you can choose from.

No matter how well intentioned someone is, he or she will probably not find a way from point A to point B if certain paths are hidden or secret. In fact, points C, D, or W may be better suited for him or her but if those points are hidden, the only apparent choice is point B.

This is the power in making things invisible. If C, D, and W are all invisible, point B looks like the only logical goal. The nature of invisible things is dealt with at length elsewhere. Let it suffice here to note that you are benefited by seeing things that other people can’t or refuse to see.

Note that things that lurk unseen often engender pain, fear, being “creeped out,” etc. They can even induce feelings of numbness. We are often trained in this society to ignore these feelings and either block them chemically, additudinally, or otherwise or to emphasize things that “feel good” instead.

Regardless of this “wisdom,” however, rarely do such feelings go away on their own. They may be drowned out for a while but that doesn’t mean that they are gone or solved. They will inevitably return until they are solved.

This is one of the lessons of the parable of tying down an elephant. The elephant doesn’t even try to break the rope even though he or she could easily do so because the elephant “learned” when it was younger that it couldn’t. The elephant never sees that it could easily break the rope. Its true prison is formed out of its expectations.

In what ways are you trapping yourself because of the expectations that you have about the world? What are you “taking for granted” and never looking at? What parts of the world are you “taking for granted?” What is invisible in your world?

The fact is that the only ones who ever break out of their cages are the ones who test the bars and everything else that holds them back. The ones who sit and simply accept what they are told or the way things appear never break out of their cages.

There are a plethora of parables and stories about turning into the pain and that pain, fear, etc. are gifts. They are as common as steering into a spin if you lose control of your car and pointing the bow of your ship into an oncoming storm and as exotic as running toward the first artillery blast on a battlefield.

All of these parables and stories point to the same wisdom and they all contradict the so-called “wisdom” that it’s best to avoid pain whenever possible and to minimize it when it’s not possible to avoid it. Pain, fear, anxiousness, etc. are good in that they have at their hearts the thing that will heal the wound. They take us to that healing if only we let them. All we have to do is learn to turn into the pain.

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2014, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”The Difference – V” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Difference – III

by DCH Park

This may sound mean. In fact, in a way, I hope that it does. I also hope that you will ask the next question and seek out the deeper truth reflected in the (apparently mean) saying rather than sitting with the surface meanness and dealing only with that.

The mean, unexpected thing is that you make no progress toward your true self by choosing something arbitrarily. The idea is usually that by choosing arbitrarily, you choose unpredictably and that if your arbitrary choice is fulfilled, that must mean that you are powerful.

However, one lesson that can be extracted from modern shamanism is that no choice is arbitrary or unpredictable. If you gravitate toward something or even imagine something, the question to ask might be, “Why did you gravitate toward that thing or why did you imagine that thing?”

If you imagine meeting a dolphin or gravitate toward holding $1 Million, why did you imagine that? You could have easily imagined a completely different animal but you imagined dolphin. You could have gravitated toward a new house or a car or boat. Why did you gravitate toward your imagined goal?

We choose the things we choose because they have some significance for us. That significance is unique – even if someone else makes the same choices, that person will have different associations with those choices and even the same choices will thus have different meanings.

Therefore, each choice provides an insight into the chooser – you. By being aware of your choice (and perhaps the other choices available) and knowing why you made the choice you did, you come that much closer to healing yourself because you come that much closer to realizing you apart from your actions and the choices you make.

There is a difference between who you are and the choices you make, between your being and your actions or doing. Realizing that difference is critical and powerful. Healing comes in between them. It becomes possible to embrace your being without getting distracted by your doing.

Conversely, Ego sees itself as benefiting from confusion between being and doing. Ego sees itself as benefiting whenever doing is confounded with being. It sees itself as benefiting when doing disappears into being. When it becomes invisible.

Healing only becomes visible as a choice when being is separated from doing. That’s why Ego loses healing. Ego tries hard to confound the two.

My teenaged son was surprised to learn that you are just as controlled by something when you fight against it as when you accede to it. This leads me to suspect that this idea, though a reflection of a deep truth, is not part of current culture. Part of me notices that I am controlled by something to the extent that it is invisible to me.

To what extent can this be found in culture? To what extent is everyday life controlled by invisible things? How can invisible things be seen?

The answer is simple and also maddening. Look.

Contrary to popular belief, the human visual system is an amazingly subtle and accurate one. It can also be trained (or the human brain can be trained) to “see” things that aren’t there and to ignore things that are. Look. Dare to see what is truly present. Amazingly, the simple act of actually seeing what is there can be a subversive act. It is subversive only in that it gives the lie and the lie is only effective as long as it seems like the truth. It is effective only as long as it is invisible.

As a child, you saw things more simply but you also saw them more clearly. You saw more directly what was right in front of you. You had to literally spend years learning to see what trusted adults said you should see. Dare to see like a child again.

###

There is a further subtlety at work in choosing arbitrarily to “prove something,” including to yourself. It’s not immediately apparent. This may be due to its invisibility, which is also why so many people get drawn into it, either as an advocate or as an opponent.

For what it’s worth, my practice is to notice what is said and how I react to it. My reaction comes from me. By noticing it, I can notice myself. My practice is to notice what is said and my reaction to it to better understand my own private view into what is true and to express what is true.

I find that in that way, I am able to experience more freedom and joy within myself and hear others around me more clearly. To be sure, reacting to what I hear and say is a part of that process but my goal is to be more aware of things, not less aware of them.

I thus try not to use those things and reactions as shields or excuses. I feel them and at the same time practice being aware of myself feeling them so that they can serve as bridges into the deeper part of me rather than as blockades.

What I have also found, to my delighted surprise, is that the more I share what I find to be true with others, the more truth there is to share. This can take many forms. One of these is that the more I share, the more I have to share. Another is that the more I share, the more I give permission to others to do the same. A third is that other people see and voice pieces of the puzzle before I do but I can recognize what they say as the truth.

Another, which is always unexpected and delightful, is that someone may say something which no one had ever heard or even thought before, yet as soon as it is said, its truth is recognized. I can say it, so can others. The list goes on.

In every case the recognized truth provides a solid stepping stone to another truth and often to many truths. Such honesty also leads to freedom. In the cases when apparently solid truths have led to wounds, healing those wounds has led to even greater truths that would have remained hidden if the wound had been allowed to block the path. If I had seen the wound as a barrier, a tender spot to be avoided instead of as what it can always be – the shortest path to the other side – I would have stopped on the near side of the wound and whatever I saw it as, anger, fear, numbness, a small annoyance, or something else, would have become simply a part of the backdrop. It would possibly become invisible. In my experience, healing something always leads to something more.

What I notice is that many people have heard that one thing or another leads to wealth and that as long as you “toe the line” and follow one set of rules (their prescribed set) wealth, ease, and health are the inevitable or logical outcomes.

When I take a step back, I notice that all such systems are saying the same thing. Details differ from system to system, but the goal is usually defined in terms of wealth. That wealth may be yours or it may be someone else’s. Either way, the worldview that lies at the heart of such views is that:

1. The material world matters (as revealed by material wealth, for example); and
2. You don’t have a choice about everything in the material world.

Thus, taken together, these attitudes toward the material world have various implications. One of these is that healing is impossible. It is impossible to experience the world differently by doing nothing more than heal yourself because you are completely separate from your surroundings. Therefore what affects one cannot affect the other or if both are affected, those effects are unrelated and/or complex.

This runs counter to the observation that it is possible to experience change in the world by doing nothing more than healing yourself. The implication is, of course, that you contain the whole of existence, which only makes sense if the world is a reflection.

This means that it truly is fruitless to try to effect change in the world while holding yourself constant. At best, you can change yourself as you change the world. However my tendency has been to change myself in order to change the world.

The things I lament in the world, the disease, war, poverty, etc. are reflections of me. They must be if I can find the world in me. This means that as I find those things within myself and heal and fully release them, the world will be transformed.

On the other hand, if I accept the reality of the world and insist on the separateness of the world from me, such wounds and strife are inevitable. They are inevitable as long as I accept them as part of the world.

Thus, choosing what you want and trying to exercise Law of Attraction in this way is the same thing as trying to hold down a good-paying job, a house in the suburbs, two cars, and a family with a spouse and a couple of kids. They are both ways to emphasize the independence and reality of the material world. They are both ways to deny or reduce the power of healing yourself.

Another view would be that you are born to have a certain shape in the universe. Some people have called it your mission but that sounds like something you do rather than what you are. In the same way that you are born to have a certain color hair, a certain look in your face, etc., you are born to have a certain shape in the universe. What is your shape? What is your truth? Not what you want – which is often determined or influenced by material reality – what is your being?

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”The Difference – III” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Healing – VI

by DCH Park

There is something that comes up for me in the context of healing. It is something that I have heard before but didn’t fully appreciate before. It is similar to other things in that my practice of Huna has aided me considerably in my ability to understand this and apply it in my life.

The thing that I recognize is the idea, the truism, that wherever you go, there is only one of you there. No matter how many might be present in a given situation, there is only one person there.

This idea has many guises. Another of the more popular ones is that the “world is a reflection.” Whatever difficulty or turmoil you may find around you, it somehow reflects you and comes from you.

As we looked at in a previous essay, if you notice that your collar is mused up in your reflection, you are not served by trying to reach into the mirror, directly for your collar. You are better served to reach in the other direction, away from the mirror to reach your collar.

It may sound silly to try to reach into the mirror but in principle that is exactly what many of us try to do. This is not surprising or it shouldn’t be. We are very carefully taught over a period of many years to reach in the wrong direction. What’s amazing is that healing is close at hand, but not in the directions that most of us are reaching in.

Nevertheless, such healing is possible and available. It is easier than we ever imagined it could be.

Thus, it is possible to change the world around you by changing only yourself. Such change is only possible because the whole universe – all of existence – can be found within you.

It’s been said that a model of the universe is a bottle that contains itself. Such a model gains power by directly containing everything. This is the same power that you or I and/or everyone has. This is why you can experience change in your life by doing nothing more than healing yourself.

Huna provides philosophies and techniques for thinking about and handling these concepts. Leaving deeper realities aside for the moment, there is a simplified version of updated Ho’oponopono available for free on the internet.

The deeper practice of Ho’oponopono makes it clear that all things are connected and that healing yourself alone leads inevitably to changes in your life, but even with the free version of Ho’oponopono that is available online it is possible to clean yourself up and thus to experience change in your life.

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”The Healing – VI” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Healing – V

by DCH Park

A curious thing happens sometimes when you get to the root of things. It tends to happen when you characterize the world as separate from yourself. This might sound strange but it is very common. In fact we are trained to think this way by school, language, and culture. It is so pervasive, it is in the fabric of society and we don’t even notice it is there. We tend to see ourselves and the world in a certain way. This certain way seems natural and normal. Everyone around us seems to be seeing the world the same way when we are growing up so we assume that we should, too.

However, since when has it been a good reason to accept or adopt anything just because others have done it the same way before? Isn’t the essence of the “Scientific perspective” that you don’t accept anything from anyone unless it makes sense to you?

The power of supposedly “obvious” things is in that we take them for granted. They seem so obvious that we take them for truth. Then we stop noticing them altogether. The power of obvious things is in their invisibility. This power allows them to shape everything that we see in the world and in ourselves. It allows us to simply accept what we think we see as “just the way things are.” We never ask ourselves why things are that way or how they fit together. Such questions are deemed to be “silly” and fit only for children.

All we have to do to neutralize this power is to notice our assumptions. We don’t have to eliminate the assumptions to change how we see the world. By removing the cloak of invisibility we are putting ourselves in the driver’s seat. We are consciously calling the shots. Our invisible assumptions aren’t any longer – they aren’t invisible or operating behind our awareness.

We can see such invisible assumptions at work at the root. It has been observed that there tends to be a reversal at the root. Suddenly black is white and up is down, metaphorically. Specifically what happens is that your expectation of separation is violated. What you observe in the world is not what you expected.

There are different possible responses to this but what I have observed tends to boil down to one of two possible things. Either you can admit to the reality of what you have observed and proceed from there or you can deny the validity or reality of your observation. In the latter case I have even seen instances in which assertions about the unreality of observations was bolstered through violence. In fact, history is full of instances in which violence or the threat of violence was used to bolster such claims.

If you accept the reality of your observations it becomes clear that things you had thought of as being opposites of each other are actually connected. They are different faces of a single thing. Society is usually predicated on an assumption that in any conflict there are two sides and the only way to “win” is to completely destroy the other side. This assumes not only that you know or will discover how to destroy the opposing force, but on a deeper level, that such destruction is even possible. It assumes that I am apparently separate from my enemy, I can destroy him or her without hurting myself.

However, everything is connected which means that it is impossible to destroy someone or something else without also diminishing or destroying yourself. One way that this can be experienced is as a sudden reversal. When we get to the root, we are past illusions and fooling ourselves. We face what truly is. So we see a sudden reversal.

This is usually a good thing in that the reversal means that we are not far away from understanding our healing. It becomes infinitely clear through our reversal that what we thought of as a problem holding us back is nothing more than a challenge providing a means to grow, that our enemy is nothing more than ourselves, and that we have chosen these challenges and selves.

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”The Healing – V” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Healing – II

by DCH Park

Things are still integrating for me as I come out of my second near-death experience. Both times, I remember clearly having a choice and choosing to come back to life. Both times, there were things to heal and things to accept about myself. In fact, I am still healing and growing from the second near-death experience. Maybe from both.

One of the ways that I continue to heal is in who I am in the world. I notice that in choosing to be alive, I am choosing myself, but who am I? I notice that many forces in society want me to be this or that, but they are uninterested in what I am. They want me to be what they want and seem to actively suppress anything else.

I think that there are many forces in society that work this way. However, my sense is that this is not what the Founding Fathers of the United States or great scientists and artists have wanted. Nevertheless, these forces are very strong and very subtle. They are practically invisible and therefore very strong. However, remember the parable of the cave. Things are invisible because we won’t see them, not because we can’t.

Expectations seem natural. They seem like “just the way things are.” However, are they? Can we make a different choice just by seeing that we can? Is our awareness that powerful?

I find that we are taught to expect rules and norms to conform to. We usually measure or prove our worth by how well we conform to these ideals. Those who call themselves “spiritual” often still conform to rules but they conform to different rules. Nevertheless, they are often playing the same game, just following a different leader.

The game that they are playing is looking to others to define for them what is right, what value they have, who they are in society and thus to themselves, etc. They are looking outside themselves for definitions of who they are and how they feel.

Instead, notice what you feel inside. Notice the difference between high and low emotions or between what has been called emotions versus feelings. Heal the one and celebrate the other.

This can begin simply and small. Simply notice what you feel. Notice what emotions are present. Notice the relationship between emotions and Ego.

Science can be summed up in a single word – honesty. Regardless of what science may have been associated with in your schooling, it comes down to honesty. That’s why scientists in the twentieth century have been able to take conscious responsibility for their culture. The net result has been a vast acceleration of cultural development. There’s no reason that the lessons of science can’t be used in other fields. Be honest with at least yourself about your emotions and what you feel. What’s going on? The more you see, the more you can see.

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”The Healing – II” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Healing – I

by DCH Park

I have heard myself saying to different people in different ways over the last couple of weeks how to find the healing at the center of wounds. This is not a topic that I have been consciously pushing. Rather I have been consciously aware of it as a question or discussion topic raised by others. As I have explored this with different partners, I have heard wisdom in what was said. Most interestingly, I have heard wisdom in my own words.

This wisdom not only reflects the truth, it is immediately recognized as being truthful. What’s more surprising is that this truth is often not anything that either person has heard before. Nevertheless, it is there and it is true.

This is a practice, but it is also an ability that everyone has, like breathing. We can recognize the truth even when we have never seen or heard it before. This is not logical. Logically speaking, recognition is of a thing that we have been seen before. It goes to remembered experience of this life and truth is (at best) inferred from what is remembered.

However, this recognition (the best word available – it captures the right feeling, but it is not in the context we have been brought to expect) of truth goes beyond logic. Logic cannot explain nor describe it. To ask logic to explain it would be to make logic bigger – big enough to contain it and it doesn’t. Specifically, recognition is not logical in that we can recognize the truth even when we have never heard it before. We can recognize something even though it is the first time we have seen it. This is not logical.

It is possible to recognize the truth even if we have never seen nor heard it before. We do it all the time. In a sense, this recognition goes to the future. One sense of the word “recognition” goes to the past while another goes to the creative future. One relies on logic while the other relies on something else.

Some people expect specific practices or behaviors that they can adopt. The more aware of these ask for such practices specifically. There seems to be an expectation that it is possible to know your destination before you are there. This seems logical and it may have led to widely accepted success in the past, but it is not true.

Many have been trained to logically define and expect a certain outcome. They have been trained that the means are shaped to bring them to the desired end. As I write this, I realize that I was like this. I was trained as a logical scientist throughout my high school, college, and graduate educations. I was led to expect logical outcomes to specific problems and situations. I expected to be able to know where I was going before I got there. I found it frustrating when such logical predictions were not forthcoming.

What I realize now is that we can never know what shape will manifest nor from where it will come. This has been demonstrated over and over again throughout history. Therefore, to maximize chances of success, it makes sense to keep as many possibilities open as possible. Further, it makes sense that whenever it becomes clear that another possibility exists which is closed or defined negatively, I benefit by at least understanding this negativity and where it comes from. If/as I can heal it, a new possibility opens to me.

This means in turn, that I can benefit by noticing the things that I define/react negatively to and healing that negativity. This is a practice. I am changing my habits so that instead of running away from negative things and things that hurt me, I run toward them.

I remember psychologists like John Welwood, who says that sitting with your rawness – those parts of you that are literally uncooked – the raw parts soften and open up to you. They tell you what they need.

In other words, the area of growth for me has been in applying the lesson from life in my specific case. What are my wounds telling me? What are your wounds telling you?

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”The Healing – I” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.a

Surrender and Will

by DCH Park

It has been said that there are two avenues toward spiritual enlightenment. One is the way of surrender and one is the path of will. Many in modern society are familiar with the path of will. It requires great discipline. Many are drawn to it. They see it as strong, like iron or stone. They gravitate toward will and reject surrender as weak. like water.

In following will, you often start out by noticing and criticizing others and their choices. You look around you and see that many are consumed with the “wrong” things in life, things that won’t carry them forward, things that won’t make them more “spiritual.”

Looking toward yourself, you may recognize such “wrong-headedness” in yourself and begin to reject it there. Self flagellation and deprivation are often ways to “punish” yourself and in particular those parts of yourself that are “wrong.”

Ultimately the followers of will find that the only way further into spirit is to surrender to a greater will. Some call this the will of God. Others know it as the will of the universe. No matter what name you give to it, in the contest of wills, it is clear that your little will is bound to be overwhelmed by the greater will.

According to Osho, the practitioners of will are destined to either surrender their will or to stop growing. If we must surrender sooner or later, why, asks Osho, waste time?

Furthermore, while the path of will requires great discipline, the path of surrender calls for extraordinary trust. However, I find that there is something beyond these apparent opposites. We are taught to believe that antagonistic opposites rule existence. In nature we find male and female, right and wrong, and hot and cold, to name a few.

What’s more, we are taught that if something is not one thing, it must be its opposite. In fact, many things are defined in terms of not being their opposite. This can even be the basis of supposed humility – one avenue to “humility” lies in denying what you are not without saying what you are.

However this only works if there are only two choices. In that case, not being one thing implies that you must be the other. But in most cases there are many more choices than only two. Even the supposed “natural opposites” listed above are idealized states that do not exist. There is, in fact, a range of states between each extreme and even the extremes change based on the range that is chosen. Thus, what is hot in one context may be cold in another. Even fighting against something gives life to what you oppose.

This is why the path of will or applying discipline must ultimately fail. Anything and everything that you oppose must grow and may ultimately grow too big to ignore. This is because it grows from all of your opposition.

The only way to defeat something is to surrender to it, but this is more than giving in. In order to stop fighting against something you have to accept it, which looks like surrender. However beyond surrender, it is possible to transcend distinctions and see not only that it defines you, you can see that it is a part of you.

From here, taking personal responsibility for all of your experience and ultimately choosing what you experience is only a matter of practice.

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”Surrender and Will” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Big Bad

by DCH Park

What if the success people are right? What if I really do create my own experience, in spite of remembering it differently? It wouldn’t be the first time I remembered something inaccurately or incompletely. Psychologically, we construct “memories” all the time, but fail to remember constructing them. Is this what happens with my experience, too?

Maybe I construct my experiences and then forget that I constructed them. Maybe I create what the world gives me, or equivalently, the world give me what I want, in site of believing that I have no choice but to accept what the world gives me?

This seems like it would be easy to test and it might be very powerful and important. If I can construct my experience, I should be able to choose it to be different beforehand. If I can’t, it’ll continue being what it has always been and ignore whatever change I make.

In order to be able to tell the difference, the thing that I create should be noticeable, but, just in case, it should probably not be too big or cause too much change before I’m ready for it to.

I have a friend who chose bugs for this reason. She couldn’t logically control bugs. If they changed their behavior, she would know. It would also indicate that their changed behavior was due to her creation, especially if their behavior towards other people was unchanged.

She changed her expectation of the bugs and they changed their behavior toward her. She can now sit by a lake or float on a stream and enjoy the scenery without worrying about mosquitoes or flies. At the same time, folks all around her, including her family, grumble and complain while they swat at bugs that bother them.

She used to swat, too. In fact, she used to complain that they were feasting on her blood all the time. However, they stopped feasting when she created something different.

She is never bothered at home, either. She lives with her mother and her part of the house is completely bug-free, while her mother is always complaining about bugs in the warm months and sweeping them out of her part of the house.

I notice that there are certain things that I have been very carefully trained in that perhaps you have been, too. There are certain things that I was trained to think, certain things I was trained to expect, that aren’t necessarily so.

They were repeated so often that I even came to tell myself these things. Eventually, I could even forget where they came from because I knew the expectations. All I needed was what I told myself.

There are certain ways that I was taught to see the world. I was led to expect that no one had made the world this way, it just was this way. It sounds ridiculous when a supposed god says that “no one made me, I made himself!” Nevertheless, that is what many of us are trained to accept about the world.

We were trained to think that if the world didn’t make itself, it was made with all its flaws and we have no choice but to receive its evil along with its good. This is one of the ideas that can seem dangerous or outlandish – not necessarily that you can choose to create more “good” and less “evil” in your life (which you surely can) but going a step beyond that into the creation of “good” and “evil” in the first place.

I have a friend who famously said that what he learned is that what we call “evil” is nothing more than “good” that is out of place (in time and/or space). I find that this idea or expectation of the nature of “evil” is ultimately liberating and broadening. It brings me back to not only a broader sense of “evil,” it brings me back to a broader view of myself.

What expectations about life and/or what you see do you have? How have those expectations become parts of your reality? What would you create differently?

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”The Big Bad” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

A Part of What Is

by DCH Park

Remember that the “problem” of separation between body, mind, and spirit is not solved so much as it does not exist, in spite of what we may tell ourselves or expect to find. There is no separation between the three, They are all parts of a larger whole, just as your foot has no separation from your head because both are parts of the larger whole.

Expecting one part to always lead is silly. It may lead sometimes, but it can’t always lead. Sometimes a different part may have something to feel and/or add to the whole and being aware of it can allow you to recognize it as a part of the whole. Your idea or experience of the whole might change, but isn’t that possibility exciting? Isn’t that arguably why we incarnate in bodies to begin with?

Different things often come through in different ways. It would thus be silly to always expect that one part leads or that another part will never lead. Expecting the head or spirit to always lead or that one or the other never leads or does not exist is silly. Yet, some people insist on only admitting to the leadership of one and denying the possibility that the other could lead. Some even deny that one of them even exists.

What can be even more insidious is that by elevating something above others or by lowering it beneath others, one thing that becomes possible is that I cease to look at it at all. I stop really looking at it and experiencing it – I stop allowing it to be what it will be and stop myself from being what I will be. I think that I already know everything it might offer because I have labeled it, I can tell myself that I control it and that I know everything it will become. Because I tell myself that I know it, I can tell myself that I see it while I only see what I expect. I might never see it at all.

I am reminded of the parable, attributed to the Dalai Lama, about expecting to be able to cure an illness by only looking for its cause (and therefore its cure) in this life. It is said that ignoring other lives and looking only in this one is like looking for your lost keys in only one room in the house.

As told, the parable is ostensibly about past lives, but it points to a deeper truth – that the whole of reality may be vastly more complex than we suspect. It may also be vastly simpler than we expect. It may be both at the same time. One thing is clear. It is probably different than we were led to expect. Even if it is exactly as we were led to expect, it seems to me that we will never know that it is unless we allow it to be what it is.

I find that allowing the universe to be what it is is the same thing as allowing myself to be what I am. In order to do either, I have to recognize and release what I expect. As long as I am expecting something, I am not allowing. I am not discovering.

It may sound strange, but the body has a lot of wisdom. This is something that has become buried in modern culture, with its emphasis on the mind and intellectual prowess. In the culture, if something doesn’t make intellectual sense or isn’t rooted in what is popularly recognized as “logical” or “scientific” understanding, it is dismissed as so much gobbledygook or as fairy tales.

However, consider something as “simple” and everyday as healing from a pinprick. Perhaps a drop or two of blood is lost, but the blood rapidly clots, sealing itself in again. That in itself is amazing. If you were to design a system using a liquid carrier that stayed fluid indefinitely but that quickly solidified when a leak developed, sealing the leak and only the leak, how would you do it? Would your system carry oxygen, food, water, countless hormones, minerals, and other substances to every cell while simultaneously carrying wastes away from cells to be processed together? Would your designed system be as robust or as fast and effective as your naturally healing body?

Blood clotting is only the beginning, though. The body goes through an amazing process of creating new tissue to permanently seal the hole so that finally the site of the original injury is completely obscured. How many systems have you built that can do the same? How many systems has anyone built that can do that? The answer is simple. No one has.

All of the engineering and technological sophistication that modern society is so proud of is unable to match even the “simple,” everyday feat of healing from a tiny pinprick. How much more complex would an artificial device have to be to eat, digest, grow, and feel pain, hunger, thirst, and pleasure?

It’s not even clear where to begin to build a machine that can feel the fire and foment at the heart of true peace, joy, and love, much less use that insight to fuel truly immortal and universal creations. It’s not even clear what that creativity is or how it can reach across all lines of culture and tradition. It’s not clear how to even start asking questions about that. Building a machine to do it seems to lie even farther out.

Taken from the other extreme, some take spiritual things to be “right.” They seem to assume that anything spiritual must be right and they judge themselves, their lives, and those of others by their “spirituality.”

They assume, for example, that the spirit must always lead the body. Thus, they may look to spirit and, expecting the body (and reality) to follow, set out intentions in spirit alone. They may define wants in spirit that their bodies don’t reflect. Their bodies may be saying something completely different, or more to the point, acting on completely different assumptions from their spirits.

Since their expressions are in conflict, they get mud or they oscillate back and forth between receiving something and losing it or receiving something different from what they asked for. They are not wrong, in my experience, but they are not quite right, either. What’s more, I’m not sure that anything, including spirit, can be trusted to lead the self.

It seems to me that one way out of this quandary would be to start with the understanding that your emotions reflect your expectations and that both reflect you and your choices (which flow from you). In other words, your behavior and other conditions of your physical body reflect your being as much as your wants in spirit do.

These physical behaviors can block you from receiving what you consciously desire. You can also forget creating (or asking for) them in the first place. When you do, experiencing them without remembering asking for them can be onerous.

Nevertheless, the burden can become a link. What separates you from what you desire also connects you to what you desire. When you return to your sense of creation, operating over what blocks you becomes nothing more than a simple choice. Nothing is easier than choosing a different state. You can choose what you prefer simply and directly.

As you let go of the final expectation that separates you from your stated desire, your desire manifests effortlessly. Of course, you never know which expectation is the last one. Nevertheless, every release brings insights and benefits.

What are you releasing, now? What are you noticing? What are you aware of?

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”A Part of What Is” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

What I Learned From B (A Friend Of A Friend)

by DCH Park

I had a friend once who had fallen into a habit of always expecting that his friend was more aware than he was. He had always expected that his friend “got” more than he did. As a result, as he became more aware, his assumption was that his friend would have to know even more.

To his credit, he (let’s call him A) caught himself having that expectation more and more frequently and noticed it at work in himself. However, he was still in the habit of playing himself down so that the other (let’s call him B) might seem bigger than he was, himself.

A refused the mantle of master and found himself enmeshed in the same arguments and misconceptions that he’d been in since childhood. When he raised his head, he could see these patterns re-emerge and he could see how they worked in him. However, he sometimes chose not to raise his head because that way his relationship with B would be the same as it had always been.

I am reading into the situation somewhat, but until A is ready to let their relationship become whatever it will be, he won’t free himself to be whatever he can be.

For whatever it may be worth, my sense is that B faces challenges that A does not have or has already found his way through. One of these, based solely on what I heard B saying, is the idea or expectation that there is such a thing as right and wrong. The concepts of right and wrong and of judgment are prevalent and we spend a great deal of practice noticing them and getting past them in ourselves.

This is often because judgment and such are presented as being necessary to life but in actuality they hold us back. It is necessary to be able to discern the difference between a floor and a road (for example) but it is not important to say which is right and which is wrong. Judgment goes to the latter.

One thing that becomes possible by noticing and releasing judgment is that possibilities that might not be considered because they are held to be “wrong” can be considered and their implications can be explored. Similarly, we are not wed to ideas of what is right, so we are not forced to consider only a few “correct” or “right” possibilities.

I may choose the same possibility or I may choose something different. Even if I choose the same possibility, the mere fact that I considered all possibilities means that my choice is more meaningful. If I had never considered “taboo” possibilities, my final choice would have meant less, even if I had chosen the same way.

This is one way that you may embrace your own “bad boy” or “bad girl.” You are free to discover who you are in yourself, regardless of what society or your training may call you or expect you to be. In this way, you may be exactly what society calls you to be or you may be different. Either way, you chose how you behave consciously.

Some may object that by having people do what they want, society would break down and chaos would ensue. Certainly, this deserves further examination and I intend to give it further examination in a future book. However, I can state that to date, my own experience and as I understand it, the experiences of creative artists and scientists of all ilks, has been that they come to the same truth. There is no chaos.

Regardless of where they start from or what method they use, they come to the same conclusions. Their conclusions touch on not only the nature of creativity and how to achieve and maintain it, they include discussions of what they find there. They talk about the nature of truth and how truth animates and penetrates everything they do.

Thus, there is no chaos. There is no abyss in the sense of emptiness. Or perhaps more to the point, there is, but not in a negative sense. Negativity is an indication that only part of the picture is being embraced. As more of the picture is grasped and let in, the whole turns from being negative to being true. It goes from having a value to being simply what is.

As part of what is, there is no separation, so there can be no chaos. Defining things to be separate and the practice of separating this from that may be useful for society in the short term, but it has no basis in fact since there is no separation. Is it possible to construct society in such a way that this lack of separation – this unity – is not only recognized, but it is celebrated and it becomes a centerpiece of how society works? How would you construct such a society?

If you have comments or questions about that, please send them directly to me. I will do my best to read everything sent and to respond to it.

For more information or for personal support in exploring presence, contact me at david@dchpark.com or 412-407-7401.

© 2013, David Park. All Rights Reserved.

”What I Learned From B (A Friend Of A Friend)” by DCH Park is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.