People will often give lip service to the idea of being open-minded, saying “I’m all for having an open mind, but not so open that my brain falls out.” Normally this means that a person is willing to consider new ideas, up to the point where some strong bias or prejudice kicks in.
Really, we cannot know if a new idea is absurd until we have considered it. If we refuse to consider it, we must be resigning ourselves to the limits of our previous conceptions, or misconceptions.
Exploring ideas can be confronting, even a little scary. However, the alternative is to maintain our prejudices, slowly hardening and moving in the walls that keep us from truly understanding the world.
The good news is, there are many tools that can aid us in our quest, such as logic, lateral thinking, the “six thinking hats”, and the idea of serious play.
In many cultures, we have the habit of saying “nice to meet you” or even “it’s a pleasure to meet you.” We might say it as a formality, or we might bring out the meaning of those words deeply as we say them.
As we get to know someone better, we might enjoy their company very much - so much in fact that we forget what life was like without them, and we fall in the trap of taking them for granted.
It is a kind of superpower that we all have, to awaken our gratitude, to notice our friends, to send them a message saying how much we appreciate them. Even more than on the day we met them, we are glad to have met those special few.
Who can you thank for their presence in your life today?
In the Catholic tradition, there are three types of prayer: praise, gratitude and petition. When we put ourselves to prayer for petition, we might ask for something specific, or something a little more vague.
The truth is, we don’t always know what we want, or what is best for us, but some deeper part of us often does. If we ask for something unspecified and good, we might receive something better than what we could have imagined.
When we pray for greater spiritual development, we might receive more faith, more humility, more wisdom, more insight, or a kinder heart.
Perhaps we will start to see more clearly the good that is in others, and be inspired by it. Perhaps the good within us will shine so brightly that it inspires others. That might seem a lofty goal, but when we set our sights high we just might achieve it.
Nathan Fallou traveled from Europe to Senegal to try to get an authentic experience, to understand the music and dance traditions such as Sabar, to speak the native language of Wolof and know the hearts of the people.
When he saw the performance of master percussionist Doudou Ndiaye Rose, he instantly knew what would be the next step in his education. Doudou was then in his early 80s, and still very much with a commanding and graceful presence, conducting many drummers - many of them his children or grandchildren.
After the show, Nathan went backstage to ask if there was any way he could help. Doudou was welcoming, and that began a partnership, something like the relationship between a guru and devotee, and later like that between a father and son.
Just as Nathan saw something miraculous in Doudou, Doudou saw something outstanding in Nathan, and that led them to collaborating in an event that would combine musical traditions and talent from Senegal and all over the world, the Deggi Daaj festival.
In Frank Sinatra’s interpretation of a famous song, he told us how valuable it was “To say the things he truly feels/And not the words of one who kneels.”
It’s not always easy to deliver the truth. The words sometimes get caught on our tongues. The longer they stay there, the more bitter they taste.
The words might be difficult to say because they are beautiful. To say the sweetest things to a friend or lover means we must be vulnerable, and that takes courage.
They also can be hard to say because they are challenging. We don’t want to hurt the people we care about; we don’t want to be seen as a critic. Yet the wisest among us place great value on a critical friend.
What wonderful things might happen, what change might be inspired… When we say the things we truly feel?
When we find ourselves wrestling with an emotion, there are many techniques we can try to allow it to pass.
We might try welcoming it, giving it space, paradoxical intention or leaning into the emotion. We might even try somatic methods, moving our bodies around in order to shake off the state.
However, sometimes through all that trying, all we seem to do is re-enforce the same state. Perhaps in that case the best thing to do is let go of all the techniques, and simply step out of the way.
Read the transcript and find important links on the site: [Cycling Through Techniques: Episode 383](https://beautifulpodcast.com/cycling-through-techniques-episode-383/)
At many points of our lives, perhaps many times a day, we put our trust in other people, perhaps even complete strangers.
We cross the street, expecting that we won’t be run over. We drive our cars expecting that the brakes will still function. We trust the bus or taxi driver to get us where we’re going. We might not even stop to think about the high level of faith that we are showing.
Then when it comes to more personal aspects of our lives, we doubt and worry. We are concerned that our new job won’t work out, or we regret that we left our old job. We might even let these doubts consume us.
Can we manage to extend that faith from our impersonal lives, into our personal lives? Can we expect, without being complacent, that things will work out okay?
Many people have the dream of creating a great work of art, a breathtaking painting, an incisive novel that captures the zeitgeist, a song that touches the hearts of millions. Often we will stop ourselves before we even form the first stroke, as if our right hand grabbed the left hand before it had a chance to bring the pen to the parchment.
In some form we are scared. We have such high aspirations for what we might be able to create, we are worried that the first lines we write may be so horrible that we won’t want to continue. Nevertheless, that is exactly where we must start - imperfectly, and perhaps far from our ambitions.
Charles Bukowski wrote that he had a rule about judging his own work. One of his characters asks “Are they good, the ten pages you wrote today?” Chuck would respond “I don’t know; I never know until 30 days afterwards.”
So he would withhold his judgement until he had sufficient distance from it to see it a little more objectively. That would give him the space to create without worrying about the quality. Write first, critique later - in this case, much later.
Another trap is not just comparing ourselves to our own aspirations, but to the works of the masters. We can attempt to imitate styles and processes of great artists in order to improve our own talents, and we learn a lot from that. However, the one thing that we can give that no one else can, is our own voice. More often than we think, that is more than enough.
So, today, we can set aside our judgements and inhibitions. Take up the quill or brush in private, to externalise the most intimate. Create today.
In this episode, Kurt recounts an unusual dream.
He is seated in a circle of nuns, monks and other practitioners on the grass in the grounds of a temple. To his left there is a young woman of Malaysian appearance, around 20 years old. She is overflowing with joy, laughing and joking. Kurt knows that she is the head of the temple and also an arahat, an enlightened being.
Everything is covered in the warm purple, lavender and orange hues of a sunset. One feels so intensely peaceful and content.
The group starts to walk to the hall for the evening chant. A cloud floats by overhead, tinted with these same sunset colours. The cloud is symmetrical, and in the middle it has the face of the Buddha. “Surely this must be a good omen,” one thinks.
Reaching the temple and sitting down to pray, one picks up an unusual lotus flower. It has long indigo petals, something like that of a thistle, and they are again formed into the shape of the Buddha’s face, another good omen.
Many times we might meet a person and assume that they were always the way they are today - confident, outgoing, kind. We might not notice the tics and scars that betray the difficulties of their past.
Likewise, if someone has obvious flaws, we might not take a moment to think of all the challenges they faced in order to be as good as they are. Then if we look at ourselves, we might judge harshly, even though we know our own story so intimately.
A person can grow so much, and while they might outgrow their past in many ways, it can serve as a reminder of what wonderful things come from humble beginnings, just like the Rose that grew from the Concrete.