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I had been hearing about an impressive tai chi teacher named Gregory Fong since moving to Portland in 1997. It was about five years later that I convinced Briana to join me one evening and we drove to Chinatown to check out his class. Sifu (“master”) Fong, as everyone called him, was probably not more than about five feet tall, but there was something intimidating about him. He welcomed us warmly, then said, “I have two questions for you. First, do you like pain?”
Do I like pain? What is the appropriate answer here? I mumbled something like, “Maybe if there is a good reason.”
He smiled. “Question two. Do you like to work hard?”
Oh boy. I thought about asking him to define the word “like,” but instead responded with, “I guess?”
He chuckled. “Alright, you don’t know if you like pain or hard work. Just sit down on that chair then.” He pointed to a wooden folding chair against a wall covered with framed portraits of Chinese men. “Rest your hands on your thighs. Don’t lean back. Lift your feet off the floor just high enough for one sheet of paper to fit under them. See you later.” And he walked away for a long time. You can try that right now if you’re sitting.
Years later, having done a lot of hard work and endured much pain in his classes, I reflected that I did in fact like to work hard. I still didn’t like pain, but I had learned the difference between avoiding it versus using it and finding a way through it. And I decided that those two questions are useful preliminaries before almost any endeavor.
They came to mind as I was thinking about the upcoming launch of our Sacred Expansion course. It’s a required program for all of our life coaches, and worthwhile for anyone interested in growing beyond their self-imposed limitations and releasing blocks to having an exceptional life.
In the context of Sacred Expansion, if I were to ask, “Do you like pain?” what I mean is, are you willing to voluntarily experience discomfort as part of discovering what’s holding you back? Are you willing to experience the tension of psycho-spiritual growing pains? Are you willing to be uncomfortable in the short term in order to release the long term discomfort you’ve gotten used to? Are you willing to use your pain to initiate a breakthrough?
As for the question “Do you like to work hard?” what I mean is, are you willing to stick with the work of unraveling your inner knots even when it’s difficult? Are you willing to choose a higher purpose – for instance: freedom, peace, spiritual connection, joy, service to your species and planet – over and over and over? Are you willing to break some habits? Are you willing to challenge your own thoughts? Are you willing to explore parts of yourself you aren’t comfortable with? All of these tasks represent a certain form of work.
By liking hard work, I don’t mean that you get points for having a hard life or that there’s merit in making things unnecessarily difficult. In fact, a core principle Sifu taught was that hard work and peace aren’t mutually exclusive. We can be at ease while simultaneously working our hardest. Regardless of the form that our work takes, there’s no getting around the importance of consistent effort in the direction of our dreams if we want them to come to fruition.
If you’ve even thought, “I know I have greater potential than this” or, “I feel like I’m missing out on my superpowers” or, “If I could release all this baggage, I could finally feel free!” read more about Sacred Expansion. We’d love to have you join us.
Be well,
Peter
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How do we pick up the pieces after a natural disaster like the one we just experienced?
Living in Boulder, we’ve all grown accustom to hearing about cleanses, and now we’ve communally experienced one.
I have many friends, myself included, who have either lost their possessions or their homes, and chances are you’ve either been affected or know someone affected by this flood. So it’s understandable if it seems like a daunting task finding the silver lining in all this, especially when we have yet to see that ever promising rainbow show up in the sky. However, this tragedy can be a blessing in disguise. Despite the physical losses and the challenges that will inevitably come with rebuilding our lives and homes, many of us have been given a rare opportunity at a fresh start.
Living in Boulder has been such a blessing. Without question, this place embodies ecologic progressiveness, mindfulness, and has a true sense of community. Before living here I was never exposed to axioms, like that of non-attachment. It sounds like such a great life principle in theory, but I never dreamed of having to be forced to appreciate it...because let’s face it, I love Anthropologie.
Yet, coming to terms with this life lesson can and will forever change your life, as it has mine in such a short period of time. That’s not discrediting the fact that along the way we won’t have ebbing and flowing moments of loss (no pun intended), but once you free your mind, your physical space, and mental life of material things, the world around you starts to fill with possibility: the possibility of spending more time fully experiencing the beauty that surrounds us, the possibility of spending more quality time with the people we care about most (and maybe even people we don’t care so much about, but will grow to), the possibility of being less selfish and more community-centered, and the possibility of living a life free of desires that aren’t related to our emotional, physical, or spiritual growth.
It’s probably safe to assume that collectively, at some point we have all been guilty of spending too much energy and focus on material things, being possessive in relationships, or allowing ourselves to dwell on negative thoughts and worries. But, if this disaster is going to teach us just one thing, it’s that we need to let go. Because, in that moment of letting go, we become more free.
“Attachment is the origin, the root of suffering; hence it is the cause of suffering.” -The Dalai Lama
Please let me be completely honest here, until the other day I was certainly preoccupied with presenting both myself and my space in a way that I previously thought was therapeutic and zen-like, but in reality was still spending way too many waking hours thinking about objects. Not to mention that until the flood came rushing down the canyon I didn’t even know my neighbors.
So, yes, while this is not the way we were planning on learning how to let the superfluous objects in our lives go, this has truly been a gift, and it can be for all of us if we’re willing to breath through and let go of the grief so that we can collectively look up and see the rainbow...or double rainbow if we’re lucky.
In the spirit of being selfless, let’s all join together to help rebuild lives and communities outside of our immediate scope of vision in whatever way we can. Donating is one simple way, and you can use the link below to do so, but there are many ways to help out, so I encourage everyone to be as active and creative as possible, and you might just be surprised to see what happens.
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/love-for-lyons-rebuilding-a-devastated-colorado-mountain-town
-Lauren G. (Assistant Spa Director - The Dragontree Boulder)
[post_title] => Breaking Up (with your stuff) Is Hard To Do
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It was 1985, and just in time for puberty I got some good lessons on the power of Love. I learned that you don’t need money, that it don’t take fame, and furthermore, that you don’t need no credit card to ride this train. However, like pretty much everyone else, I still got stuck on the idea that Love is (1) what you’re obligated to feel for your family members, or (2) the fortuitous result of circumstances being just right.
Given that it’s pretty much the best feeling in the world and one of the prime motivators of human behavior, it’s unfortunate that we often tend to think of Love as an elusive thing. Something to be chased and held onto tightly, something that can be taken away. And, sadly, certainly not something we can experience at will.
Being immersed in a world in which the idea of looking for Love is so prevalent, it’s been hard to break myself of the habit of thinking this way. But I no longer believe it’s true.
About 15 years ago, I was at a meditation retreat, and every once in a while the facilitator would ask a question. No verbal response was required . . . the question was just meant to sink into the consciousness of the participants. One of the questions was, “What is your greatest power?” Whereas most of the questions spurred a stream of thoughts, and sometimes the hope that I had come up with the “right” answer, this one hit me differently. My mind didn’t have a chance because my heart answered immediately. It said, “Love.” And I had a sense that this wasn’t just my greatest power, it was our greatest power.
Maybe you’re thinking, “Why should I care about the realization that you say came out of your heart at some woo-woo meditation retreat? Speak for yourself – my greatest power is that I can shoot fire out of my eyes.” Yeah, yeah. I know what comes out of my heart isn’t as credible as a double blind study in a peer reviewed journal. And if you thought that was woo-woo, let me give you a little perspective. Part of my training in Chinese Medicine was to learn qigong – the art of perceiving, manipulating, and cultivating life energy (Qi). After years of playing with Qi, you don’t question it when your heart talks to you.
Anyway, I’m not asking you to take my word for it, but please hear me out. In the years since then, I’ve kept listening to my heart and I’ve learned a little about Love. I still have a ways to go in terms of living in accordance with what I’ve learned, but I know enough to point others in the right direction. So, here it is.
First, we think of Love way too much as a noun. And Huey Lewis, bless his heart, didn’t help break of this habit. We like to treat Love as a thing. To be deserved, to be earned, to be won, and to be lost.
Love can be a noun – in that it’s a quality of being – but in my experience, it has nothing to do with deserving or winning. Love just IS. Love is our native state. It’s who we are. We can pile on so many beliefs and affectations that we lose sight of it, but we can’t change this most fundamental fact. Our minds may get confused and put conditions upon Love. But Love is always there, within us, able to be accessed at any moment, even when it seems utterly far away.
Now for the verb form of Love. This is where our power comes in. To Love is what we were born to do. Love is an expansion. Love never excludes. And the more we embrace this notion, the richer our life becomes.
The function of a confused mind is to separate everything. When you have the honor of spending time with children you notice how they (especially the tiny ones) haven’t learned to separate everything into countless discrete entities. And when you really see this in them, it’s awesome. Not just because it’s so beautifully uncontrived, but because you know you used to be that way.
But we teach them to separate, with names and labels, and we place such importance on it that Love is a natural casualty of the process. With a million separate words and ideas, and billions of separate people, it’s understandable that we’d think that Love, too, is separate from us.
Maybe you use the word God for what I am calling Love, but I think we’re talking about the same thing, and the same sense of separation between God and themselves exists in the minds of most people who use the word God. When we believe that God, or Love, or whatever word you like, is something separate from us, it becomes a conditional thing in our lives. And we invent the conditions that preside over that relationship.
But, not only is Love not separate from us, Love itself is the mender of separation. Love fills in the gaps that create separation. Like a warm ocean waiting on the other side of the door, the moment we open the places we’ve restricted, Love rushes in, saturating all the parts of ourselves and the world that we haven’t accepted, and in so doing, unites what we tried to separate.
So, I urge you to Love as a verb. When we take deserving out of the equation, we’re suddenly surrounded by an infinite array of Love-worthy people, plants, animals, and stars. And also Love-worthy dirt, garbage, and smog, by the way.
Try silently saying “I Love you” to the person bagging your groceries, to the person who just cut you off and made you miss your exit, to the person on the tech support line who tells you, “I’m going to have you turn off your phone and then turn it back on. Maybe that will fix it.”
But don’t forget about the person whose body you’re renting. That character has been doing so much misguided stuff to get more Love, and all along you had the power to unleash it upon yourself. Go for it.
Love,
Dr. Peter Borten
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I had been hearing about an impressive tai chi teacher named Gregory Fong since moving to Portland in 1997. It was about five years later that I convinced Briana to join me one evening and we drove to Chinatown to check out his class. Sifu (“master”) Fong, as everyone called him, was probably not more than about five feet tall, but there was something intimidating about him. He welcomed us warmly, then said, “I have two questions for you. First, do you like pain?”
Do I like pain? What is the appropriate answer here? I mumbled something like, “Maybe if there is a good reason.”
He smiled. “Question two. Do you like to work hard?”
Oh boy. I thought about asking him to define the word “like,” but instead responded with, “I guess?”
He chuckled. “Alright, you don’t know if you like pain or hard work. Just sit down on that chair then.” He pointed to a wooden folding chair against a wall covered with framed portraits of Chinese men. “Rest your hands on your thighs. Don’t lean back. Lift your feet off the floor just high enough for one sheet of paper to fit under them. See you later.” And he walked away for a long time. You can try that right now if you’re sitting.
Years later, having done a lot of hard work and endured much pain in his classes, I reflected that I did in fact like to work hard. I still didn’t like pain, but I had learned the difference between avoiding it versus using it and finding a way through it. And I decided that those two questions are useful preliminaries before almost any endeavor.
They came to mind as I was thinking about the upcoming launch of our Sacred Expansion course. It’s a required program for all of our life coaches, and worthwhile for anyone interested in growing beyond their self-imposed limitations and releasing blocks to having an exceptional life.
In the context of Sacred Expansion, if I were to ask, “Do you like pain?” what I mean is, are you willing to voluntarily experience discomfort as part of discovering what’s holding you back? Are you willing to experience the tension of psycho-spiritual growing pains? Are you willing to be uncomfortable in the short term in order to release the long term discomfort you’ve gotten used to? Are you willing to use your pain to initiate a breakthrough?
As for the question “Do you like to work hard?” what I mean is, are you willing to stick with the work of unraveling your inner knots even when it’s difficult? Are you willing to choose a higher purpose – for instance: freedom, peace, spiritual connection, joy, service to your species and planet – over and over and over? Are you willing to break some habits? Are you willing to challenge your own thoughts? Are you willing to explore parts of yourself you aren’t comfortable with? All of these tasks represent a certain form of work.
By liking hard work, I don’t mean that you get points for having a hard life or that there’s merit in making things unnecessarily difficult. In fact, a core principle Sifu taught was that hard work and peace aren’t mutually exclusive. We can be at ease while simultaneously working our hardest. Regardless of the form that our work takes, there’s no getting around the importance of consistent effort in the direction of our dreams if we want them to come to fruition.
If you’ve even thought, “I know I have greater potential than this” or, “I feel like I’m missing out on my superpowers” or, “If I could release all this baggage, I could finally feel free!” read more about Sacred Expansion. We’d love to have you join us.
Be well,
Peter
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I love this! You are right on point. Being half nude and overly sexualized is not empowering its demeaning. But in today’s world sadly women sell their souls for attention and money.