I am visiting back at Kanzeon in Salt Lake City. The center seems different each time I visit. This time, they have several large buildings, as before, but many more people. I arrive during lunch, and there must be more than a hundred people there eating together. Some outside, as me, and some inside in the buildings around. The meal is fresh, nourishing and made with care. It is a very diverse group, including many homeless or others who cannot afford regular and healthy meals, and who may also be hungry for the type of connection found here.

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Another way to talk about always & everywhere is to say that enlightenment is retroactive. (From Joel at CSS.)

When we find that we are capacity for whatever is happening, as they say in the headless world, we also find that it is always like that. There has never been a time it wasn’t like that already, it is just that we didn’t notice. We took ourselves to be a portion of what we are capacity for. (This human self, a doer, observer, etc.) So in that sense, enlightenment is retroactive. It is all already Buddha Mind, the Divine Mind, the play of God.

But there are also other aspects to it.

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Something else that seems basic when we are more familiar with the terrain, but may be less so in the very beginning…

All of what I write about here – allowing experience, inquiry, gratitude, empathy and so on – is for myself. There is more clarity and invites identification to shift out of stories and identities. 

And that release of identification allows for a wider range of stories that I can use as temporary guides for action.

I more easily recognize stories as temporary guides for action. And there is more freedom to use whatever experience, insight, knowledge and kindness is available to me in chosing a story to use as a temporary guide for action in any particular situation.

It may look like yin kindness. Receptive. Empathy. Allowing. 

Or it may look more like yang kindness. Cutting. Strict. Clear boundaries. 

(To the extent there is a release of identification, there is a freedom in chosing among these stories. Which means that there is often a mix… there may be some release of identification with some stories, yet still identification with other stories.)

Then there is the receptivity in watching for feedback. Learning. Modifying. 

I can look for where I am still caught up in beliefs. And I look for ways to act that is a little more skillful in different situations.

I keep coming back to the mutuality of view, heart and belly. I notice the dynamics in daily life, and get curious about it… how does it look when I explore it a little more closely? 

It is simple when it is lived. And there is now end to how complex it can get when I try to sort it out within thought. 

For instace, I notice how an open heart supports a more receptive view. 

First a few general things about views…

When the view is receptive, there is fluidity, curiosity and innocence (the don’t know type) there. Receptivity to find the practical validity (grain of truth) in any story, including the reversals of familiar ones. There is a sense of not needing to defend any story or identity, because none of them are taken as really true. They are at best temporary and practical guidelines. 

When the view is closed, there is rigidity and identification with stories and identities. There is a sense of needing to protect certain stories and identities. To enhance and defend them, and shoot down any story (or situation) that appears to threathen them.

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One of the many “open secrets” out there is that well-wishing for others tends to calm social anxiety.

If I am in a situation that triggers social anxiety in me – such as giving a talk or teach – and I take the time to find sincere well-wishing for others, the nervousness subsides.

And if I know in advance that I will be in such a situation, I take some time to find the well-wishing to others in general and specifically to the ones who will be there.

How do I do it? As it becomes more familiar, it is just a matter of shifting into it. But there are also tools for inviting in that shift, such as finding the sincerity in statements like “may all go well for them”, visualizing others as healthy and happy, or doing a practice such as tong-len.

I am not quite sure what mechanisms are at play, but I suspect it has something to do with the miracles of an open heart.

When my heart opens, it opens to whatever is happening. For instance, if it initially opens to my body – through the Inner Smile or some other pointer – it opens to the whole of me as a human being, to others, and to life as it is.

In this case, my heart initially opens to others… and then naturally to myself. There is a sense of coming home, of allowing all of who I am as it is, of the sense of drama falling away, and a softening of the sense of I and Other.

So even when stories about me come up – stories my personality doesn’t particularly like – the sting goes out of it.

In sincere well-wishing for myself, I take the information in those stories seriously and make use of them in whatever ways seem appropriate, but there is little or no sting there.