Thinks I find along the way
I watched the video and pulled out a more detailed summary (not a full verbatim transcript, but close enough that you’ll see the phrasing and when things happen). Use it as a reference or to pick which “acts of love” you want to try first…
Heard this song? I can’t stop listening to it…
Forgive me, I’ve been drinking
Backroad and then thinking
Remember when the band played on while the ship sinking
No matter what I do, there’s no escaping my past
I do everything I can and it keeps chasing my ass…
Any fan of documentaries, particularly those of Ken Burns will recognize the iconic voice of Peter Coyote. As one of those fans, imagine my joy when I discovered that the voice behind many of my favorite historical documentaries such as The Civil War, The American Buffalo, and Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery is not only a great actor and voice artist, but also a Buddhist priest!
Continue reading “Peter Coyote”
A ‘quote*’ from Tara Brach’s meditation “From Story to Presence”…
“The reality is each one of us has caused hurt to other people and each one of us has been hurt by other people. But if we keep running the story of “You hurt me; you’re bad” or “I hurt you; I’m bad” all that happen is a looping that creates separation. What if instead we say the story is that I hurt you and we let that story be there, we don’t put it aside too quickly…
We let it be there and we feel what it feels like in our body. The very presence with that vulnerability awakens compassion. Now the trick — because this is where there can be more suffering is to take the story “I caused you suffering” and to get stuck on the “I’m bad, I’m bad, I’m bad”. We’re wedded to the story and we don’t have access to deeper presence…
So the pathway I am describing to you, and it takes a real sensitivity, is that when stories arise in our mind — to not to quickly go ‘it’s just a story, back to the breath’ because that is just another form of aversion and denial — is to let it be there a bit, but not to believe the story.”
She goes on to say “the story behind some of the more drama stories is really the story of Self. As we open to this presence, we wake up out of that core story that keeps us separate”.
You can hear the whole talk here:
*I tried to transcribe it as best I could; this is NOT an official transcription…
In reality we are all storytellers and the story we tell about our lives is what we believe, and then we act on what we believe and those actions create a result that continues to reinforce and backup our story! Crazy cycle right?
Tony [Robbins] asked a funny and also profound question yesterday. We were talking about the movie “Titanic” as a reference. He was joking around and said “If you saw “Titanic” 3 times a day for 10 years, every day, how would you feel?” Obviously, with a sad ending like that, most of us would probably not be jumping up and down for joy. We’d probably be sad, perhaps a little hopeless and feel like we’ve missed out on life and or love.
Tony asked, “Do you wanna go see a shitty movie 10,000 times?” and obviously the answer is no. But – wait a minute – what about the movie, or the “story” that you tell yourself about what your life is like? What is that story like? Is it empowering? Is it awesome? Is it inspiring? Or is it shitty and sad? And how many times a day do we tell ourselves these stories?
ALL THE TIME! So, we are watching and reacting to the story we are telling ourselves about our lives and then producing that result. What story are you telling yourself about your life?
A long time ago during Apple days, I was privileged to work with Nilofer Merchant. She writes here…
I believe in the power of stories. Stories are like Maps. They point to directions and paths that we might not have seen if not well marked. I share my stories, and my goal is to enable others to be emboldened to share theirs. Stories told as they are happening is a way of seeing the imperfect, raw, and often tenuous ways that outcomes are shaped. When any decision is seen in retrospect, we can say “of course” but that’s rarely how it feels at the time. I did a very transparent process of sharing the Rubicon closure story over the course of a year, in the hopes that perhaps it will be informative to others and knowing that how I tell the story years from now will be different than the steps on the journey. This blog can then be a learning journey of stories – yours and mine.
Nilofer is brilliant! Follow her blog and you’ll see why…
Bright, shiny objects! 
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