the dream life

Early morning Buddhist inspiration

We must therefore develop a sense of responsibility for each others condition, we must see that hurting someone else, or inflicting pain on other people, cannot bring happiness or peace of mind. ~Tenzin Gyatso

Big Happy Buddha

A Buddhist with a glue stick

“That which is like unto itself is drawn.” -the teachings of Abraham

“Everything is valid and everything is truthful, because Law of Attraction lets everything be. The question is not whether it's right or wrong, whether their approach is right or wrong, or whether my approach is right or wrong. The question is: Does their approach feel good to me? And if it doesn't, then I choose a different approach.” - Abraham

“There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.” -the Buddha

“What makes you happier: To deal with what you want and to increase it, or to deal with what you do not want and to fight against it?” -Barbel Mohr

I’ve been meaning to write this post for the longest time. I’ve been meaning to get down my thoughts and feelings and experiences surrounding the law of attraction and the power of manifesting. I allude to these things, but I’ve wanted to go a little deeper and explain where I am with these concepts.
Finally, I think I’m ready to explore this here, with you, and let these disjointed thoughts spill all around and fill up this white space. It’s not going to be coherent, but maybe you can sift around in these things and see a glimmer of where my thinking has taken me.
Several years ago, I read a book by Barbel Mohr called The Cosmic Ordering Service. In it, the basic idea of manifesting was outlined and I paid attention and even tried to put those concepts to work in my life, but there was something about the whole idea that was missing for me, something I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around.
About a year ago, my friend Mandy suggested I read Ask and it is Given. That was the first I’d heard about Abraham-Hicks and I happily and devoured the book with gusto. It rang in me like a bell, even when I didn’t understand it. Even when it scared me.
As someone who has often felt paralyzed by fear (fear and worry and sugar being the three main ways my family expresses love), Ask was both eye opening and frightening for me. As I started to read about the law of attraction, I started to fear that my obsessive negative thoughts were going to manifest bad things and that I wouldn’t be able to stop them.
Then, I realized, I’d been alive for a number of years thinking the sorts of thoughts I think. There had to be forgiveness in there somewhere. Change is sometimes a slow process. What I needed to do, I realized, was focus on shifting my thoughts, not worry about whether or not the thoughts were shifting.
I was also discovering Doreen’s teachings, so I leaned on the angels for support. When my thinking got too muddled, I asked the angels to help me cut cords, to take from me my negative thoughts, my worries, the results of my worries. My prayers often sounded (and still do sound) like this, Take this please; undo what I’ve done here, please; help! And the help came and continues to come.
Ask and it is Given illuminated for me a set of spiritual concepts that have been around forever. I’d read about them in Shakti Gawain’s work and Wayne Dyer’s. There was something about the Abraham-Hicks material, however, that got things to click for me.
I’d read the Seth books in high school, and have always had an interest in Edgar Cayce, so the concept of channeled material wasn’t a challenge for me, although I understand why some people are put off by it.
The truth is, I don’ t really care if Esther Hicks is channeling Abraham or making the whole thing up. If it works, it works. Now, mind you, I believe that she is channeling Abraham, I’m just saying that the question of authenticity doesn’t matter to me.
As I read, I could clearly see instances in my life when my thoughts and intentions had directed the flow of energy and as I began to work with angels, I experienced true and undeniable guidance and assistance. This was all great, but not without problems.
When dealing with my own mind and body and experiences, I could accept the suggestion that physical ailments and challenges were drawn to me through my thinking, but I had a problem applying that concept to the larger world.
I don’t think starving children are starving because of their thoughts, for instance. I don’t think abused children have attracted the abuse.
I was tripped up by this concept of “fault.” We’re a blame-based society in a lot of ways and I think as I explored the law of attraction, I went off track down this blame road that has nothing to do with the actual teachings.
I also wondered where the law of attraction left me as a fiction writer. I wondered what it would mean for me to spend entire days examining and reliving past pains and failures. Would I inadvertently draw those experiences to me again?
I tossed these things around in my head. Then, last Christmas, I watched The Secret with Mandy and Tracy. Mandy and I were disappointed as we thought Esther Hicks was going to be in it, and she wasn’t. Tracy was so disgusted by the whole thing he stomped out of the room.
The Secret had an informercial quality to it - it was slick and presented the concepts in a simplistic almost non-spiritual way that left me uneasy. I think it's great that The Secret is so popular, and I'm glad so many people have made their way to these concepts through the Secret. Personally, however, I don’t like that when I talk about the law of attraction to people who aren't already into it, they think I mean The Secret.
So, if I don’t mean that, what do I mean?
The idea that thoughts influence the body works for me because I believe that separateness is an illusion. I believe in the interconnectedness of everything and everyone. I carry around a copy of Heal Your Body and every single time I look up a physical challenge that I’m encountering, the affirmation rings true and helps me solve the problem.
I believe in the power of positive thinking because I know it works. I consistently feel my perceptions and experiences shift with my attitude and I know that (to a certain degree) I get back from the world what I put out.
But I also know that bad things happen for no good reason, that good people thinking loving thoughts doing loving things sometimes get very, very sick. I know that there are some things I can control and some things I can not.
I know that when I’m reaching for the better feelings, I often get stuck on anger.
I know that I am sometimes ill-tempered and foul-mouthed and petty. I can transform those emotions by sitting at my meditation altar, lighting a candle, and asking for help. I can, but often, I don’t.
I know that sometimes I am given beautiful, amazing, wondrous things for no reason, even though I’ve been thinking the opposite.
I believe in the law of attraction but I also believe in instant redemption, and I also believe that sometimes things just happen.
I don’t believe in randomness.
I believe in karma but I don’t believe in judgment or punishment.
I believe in signs but I don’t necessarily believe in fate.
I don’t believe, and have never believed, that there is one way or one truth that is right for everyone.
I know that it’s good to feel good.
We’re often taught that it’s good to feel bed. We’re taught it so much, in so many different ways, we start to believe it in a fundamental way. We’re scared to let go of it. Of all the things I’ve learned from the teachings of Abraham, it is the understanding of joy that I appreciate the most. It’s good and productive to be happy. Happy heals. Feel good, and good happens.
So, I struggled with all of this for a while.
I’m comfortable with contradiction, but as I worked through the Abraham-Hicks material, I wanted to understand and make sense of things.
I found, through Myss.com, an article that pulled things together for me. Unfortunately, I can’t find it now to link to it, but there were two things within it that stood out to me as important. The first was the idea that there are other universal laws, that sometimes a thing happens because of one of these other laws. The other was the concept that the law of attraction is a power that the ego can’t access if the soul isn’t willing to go along. In other words, you can’t just sit around visualizing piles of money and poof, the money appears, if you’re not doing the soul work you are here to do.
Around this same time, I read Pema Chodron’s The Places That Scare You on the suggestion of my friend Lucy, and reacquainted myself with Buddhist concepts. At first, I thought that what Chodron was describing stood in stark contrast to the law of attraction. Slowly, however, I began to realize that it did not. Slowly, ever so slowly, the wrinkles in my brain began to deepen just enough to allow a few glimpses of understanding and I saw that the core Buddhist principles are right in line with the Abraham-Hicks teachings, which, by the way, can also be found in the Bible.
I have long surrounded myself with images of the Buddha because I find them reassuring and calming and beautiful. When I used Doreen’s Ascended Masters deck, I almost always draw eastern masters. That’s where I lean, where I feel comfortable. The imagery of Buddhism is a natural fit for me. Now with Pema’s teachings (I travel with Getting Unstuck in my CD player). I am beginning to feel brief passages of true peace. Lately, when I feel tears rise, I lean into them rather than fighting them off. I sit with my sorrow and my fear rather than, well, fearing it.
I don’t think I’m going to manifest my fears by acknowledging them. I think by acknowledging them, I can let them go.
And in this way, Buddhism has helped me build my relationship with the law of attraction, which is not simple and not about judgment or victim-blaming, but is about turning toward gratitude and joy and tending the garden of my life so that the beauty that makes my heart sing grows larger and I am no longer owned by sadness or adrift in my life waiting for the good stuff to happen.
It’s about acknowledging the gift - this gift of life that contains suffering and pain but also abundance and deep, deep happiness that everyone can experience because we were born to experience it.
So, can a person like cute pajamas, believe in fairies, talk to angels, make dream boards and still be a Buddhist? Some sort of Buddhist, yes, I think.
One who practices manifesting.

It’s been almost a year since I made my dream board using Colette Baron-Reid’s instructions. I think I’m ready to add to it, to tweak it, and turn my attention to it in a way that I haven’t done with the first one, really.
I am a deeply stubborn person. It takes me a while to begin a practice of any kind. When I first made my dream board, I still had too many questions, too much resistance. Now, I’ve read enough and experienced enough - I’ve come far enough down this path to know that these principles may be widely misunderstood and misrepresented, but they hold power for me and help me both ground myself and connect to spirit.
I recently discovered this group and decided to make a new board and participate in the 100 day challenge.
I can embrace the law of attraction now, with the understanding that it is both simple and complicated. I’m excited to see what can happen in 100 days.

My Sacred Life Day 19: Peace

Evoking the presence of the great compassion, let us fill our hearts with our own compassion--towards ourselves and towards all living beings.
Let us pray that all living beings realize that they are all brothers and sisters, all nourished from the same source of life.

--Buddhist prayer for peace

My Sacred Life

Stay this moment

What’s your default mode? When you first wake in the morning, are your thoughts positive or negative? Do you feel joy or dread? As you go through your day encountering life, do you greet it with an open heart or a closed mind? How do you deal with contrast and conflict? How do you cope when suddenly gripped with anger or sadness?
These are the questions I’ve been mulling.
This morning I was walking in to work. It was 78 degrees and a lovely breeze was blowing. I walked through a beautiful scene of green grass and rustling trees and blooming flowers. I appreciated these things. I acknowledged and was grateful for them.
But my mind was already looking ahead at the heat index of over 100 degrees to come, the trip to the grocery that I absolutely must make tonight, and my work day spent in a windowless room.
Lately, I’ve noticed that my default mode is complaining, whiny and terribly judgmental. I seem to reach first for the ugly thought. I wake with a fist of fear in my chest. My internal dialogue is a stream of what I don’t like, what I don’t want, what I don’t understand.
Every morning I receive a Buddhist message in my inbox and at the bottom it says, “What you think upon grows.” What you think upon grows. What I think upon grows. I’m growing a nasty garden in my head these days and I’m doing so in spite of myself. I know better, but there is a gap between knowing what to do, wanting to do it and actually putting it into practice.
Which brings me to default mode. Where does it come from? Is it something we learn from our families of origin? Is it perpetuated by media input and society at large? By directing attention to it right now, am I growing it larger? Why is it easier to complain – which is, in essence, a way to distance and wall ourselves off from the world – than it is to embrace and cherish, to feel at peace?
And why is it so difficult to hold ourselves in a place of positive thought? It seems for me to come in waves or bursts, micro enlightenments that happen in an instant and are quickly overtaken by the sludge of habit.
The seeking of spiritual knowledge seems to lead us directly into contrast. The more I am aware of my own thoughts and actions, conscious of redirecting toward acceptance and love, the more aware I am of the thoughts and actions of others in my life – the negative statements, judgments, walls. And my noticing is, of course, a mirror that is held to my own psyche. Often, we resist in others what we don’t like about ourselves.
I am making an effort to check myself before I speak. To not use complaint as a conversation starter, to not recite the roll call of what’s offended me today, but to choose a different path with my words and attention.
It’s harder to check the internal, to redirect thought. I find myself silently shouting, “No!” which is still attention to the thought. Resistance doesn’t make something go away. Attention is attention.
As a people, we try. We launch “wars” on everything – a war on drugs, a war on illiteracy, a war on disease, a war on war. But wars make things bigger. Shouting “No!” gets us nowhere and nothing except more of the same. As Yoko and John knew, “yes” is the answer.
It requires a shift in focus. An opening instead of a closing. And it requires bravery, I think. For me, it means stepping into new and less familiar territory.
It’s easier to stay with the negative thought because…it’s easier. There’s more support for it. I can always find someone to commiserate with me. I can always find people who believe what I believe, who want to stand next to me and point fingers and condemn.  Temporarily, it feels good. Self-righteousness is a drug that zooms through the blood and makes us feel powerful and all-knowing. And, in some strange way, safe.
But like all drugs, it provides a false safety and the bad feelings come back, if they ever really went away at all, and after the judging I find myself even further away from the good feelings, the understanding that all is well, because I’ve made enemies of others which is just another way of saying that I’ve made an enemy of myself.
I don’t think that holding thought to a positive loving place means denying anger and sadness. Our emotions, all of them, exist for a reason.
I doubt there’s a soul on earth who’s never walked into a room, a building, a house, a store and not felt the sinking feeling, a negative energy that sits in the pit of the stomach like a warning. Sometimes it comes in meeting another person. It’s not that the person is bad, but there’s something – some energy that feels repulsive and we experience the urge to pull away. We get “a bad feeling” about someone or something so we remove ourselves from the situation.
I think those sorts of bad feelings are gifts that we’re given, tools that we can use to direct our lives toward safe passage. And maybe that’s what all of our bad feelings are. So maybe it’s not the experiencing of the bad feelings that’s the problem. It’s what we do next.
What I tend to do next is swim around in it. Oh that person makes me so mad, why does he/she have to be that way, how can he/she think such a thing, what if this happens, what if that happens, it’s never going to get better, we’re sunk, all is lost, oh crap.
Where is the middle ground, or the solid ground, between noticing the things going on in the world that we’d like to change, even working to change them, and accepting the things we don’t agree with or understand? Why is it so difficult to live and let live – to look first at our shared humanity, the parts of one another that we appreciate and love, rather than the parts we fear? Why is it so difficult to sit in the good moments, the beauties and joys and gifts that are imbedded in each day, than it is to wring our hands around the pointed edges, the raw nerves, and the manifested fears?
It’s an act of courage to love without judgment and I suppose what I’ve been experiencing lately is a lack of courage. I’ve been resting back into the easier, but less comfortable place. I’ve been operating on some sort of malevolent automatic pilot, letting the junk thoughts spew around in my head and out of my mouth the same way the junk food likes to flow in – because it’s familiar and offers a momentary zing of pleasure.
As I contemplated the questions this morning, I thought about how shifting thought and awareness begins with noticing.
The challenge comes after the noticing. For instance (to use an example from a recent post – no, I’m not obsessed with tomatoes), I notice that my tomatoes look good. They’re getting fat and big. I’m pleased that they’re thriving. In my default mode, the next thought I think is fear-based. I don’t want the tomatoes to get swiped by yard animals. I don’t want to the plants to be overtaken by blight. I don’t want, I don’t want and slam, I’m mired down in negative thoughts.
So the key, I think, is to stay with the noticing. The tomatoes are healthy. The tomatoes are growing. The tomatoes have sunshine and water and nutrients. I am putting coffee grounds on the earth around them. In this moment, all is well.
When I feel my mind begin to drift toward the negative thought, I can tug it back into place simply by noticing. And I can give the noticing a boost by envisioning a positive future. In this case, an apron full of fat, ripe tomatoes.
I’m using this example because it’s the easiest one I can think of. It’s clear cut and I’m not overly attached to it. This concept becomes stickier and trickier in other situations, but at the core, it’s the same.
So, this is what I’m trying to do – to hold myself in the noticing of what’s good, loving, beautiful, sweet, harmonious – the things that are working.
And when the other thoughts float in, I’m breathing them out and leaning back into the noticing.