Happiness cannot be found
through great effort and willpower,
but is already present, in open relaxation and letting go.

Don’t strain yourself,
there is nothing to do or undo.
Whatever momentarily arises in the body-mind
has no real importance at all,
has little reality whatsoever.
Why identify with, and become attached to it,
passing judgment upon it and ourselves?

Far better to simply
let the entire game happen on its own,
springing up and falling back like waves -
without changing or manipulating anything -
and notice how every thing vanishes and
reappears, magically, again and again,
time without end.

Only our searching for happiness
prevents us from seeing it.
It’s like a vivid rainbow which you pursue without ever catching,
or a dog chasing its own tail.

Although peace and happiness do not exist
as an actual thing or place,
it is always available
and accompanies you every instant.

Don’t believe in the reality
of good and bad experiences;
they are like today’s ephemeral weather,
like rainbows in the sky.

Wanting to grasp the ungraspable,
you exhaust yourself in vain.
As soon as you open and relax this tight fist of grasping,
infinite space is there – open, inviting and comfortable.

Make use of this spaciousness, this freedom and natural ease.
Don’t search any further.
Don’t go into the tangled jungle
looking for the great awakened elephant,
who is already resting quietly at home
in front of your own hearth.

Nothing to do or undo,
nothing to force,
nothing to want,
and nothing missing.

- Venerable Lama Gendun Rinpoche

The Venerable Lama’s poem, plus the beauty of the season, inspired me to create this image to accompany it:

Information about the Venerable Lama Gendun Rinpoche can be found here.

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My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

– Mary Oliver

No matter what challenges face us, no matter how surprising, unsettling, or difficult they may be, may we all take the time each day to remember and savor those mysterious things that live forever.

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This inexpensive public service announcement from the UK (created by the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership) is more beautiful, creative, and emotionally rich than all of the expensive ads I saw on yesterday’s Super Bowl. A helpful reminder it’s not money that makes project great, it’s thought.

How do you use the power of simplicity and conceptual power to supercharge your creative projects? Are there ways to create more impact using fewer elements?

PS – Buckle up!

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There are countless voices that pronounce the ego loudly to the world, that tell us the convincing and familiar story of our separateness, that define success in terms of material acquisition, that urge us to produce so we can consume, produce and consume, produce… consume… These messages are so pervasive in modern society that they’ve almost become undetectable, like the ever-present feeling of air passing through our nostrils.

Who speaks for that which is greater than ourselves, for that great mystery of our common origin? Who speaks for (dare I say it?) the Unified Field of One? The reggae prophet Vaughn Benjamin of “Midnite” does. [I got the phrase from one of his songs, called "Won" - one of my favorite songs of all time. And he most likely got the phrase from Einstein, who applied his genius for much of his life to the creation of a Unified Field Theory.] I feel that “Avatar” is another expression of this elemental, essential message for we who have become deeply and tragically convinced of our existential separateness from nature and from each other. This sense of separateness, this failure to recognize our interdependence on other life-forms with whom we share this planet has had drastic consequences both for ourselves and for our fellow inhabitants of this planet. We have entered an era that scientists ominously call “6 X” – the sixth major period of mass extinctions in our planet’s history. If this doesn’t serve as a wake-up call, if this doesn’t jolt us out of habitual patterns of global myopia and provincial complacency, what will?

I know I wasn’t the only one who heard the ancient wisdom of the plant teachers, shamans, and of Gaia Herself in “Avatar.” [Here's an interesting article entitled "Aya Avatar: Drink the Jungle Juice," about the link between the movie and the shamanic elixir, ayahuasca.] Friends who have taken the time to sit, clear their heads of habitual thoughts, and listen to Spirit have shared with me that they felt similarly. Nor was I the only one who yearned to remain in Pandora once the credits rolled. It’s hard living in a world where the priorities seem so topsy-turvy, where creating profit is prioritized so highly, where the earth is viewed as an intert resource to be plundered, where animals are seldom treated with dignity (save a privileged few), where techno-infatuation supplants real human interaction (Facebook instead of face-time, for example). I’ll stop myself here, because I have something much more important to share than my personal sensitivities and challenges.

Perhaps you’re thinking that “Avatar” (which has already pulled in more than $1.1 billion worldwide) is itself an expression of the very profit-imperative that I’ve just criticized. This is true… on the surface. And I feel that this is part of the brilliance of the movie. Like “The Matrix,” the paradigm-shattering film that used the mainstream media to deliver a revolutionary message of consciousness-expansion, “Avatar” functions as a Trojan Horse. It’s wrapped in a big, glossy, pretty package, and gives every appearance of being a big chunk of entertainment (Pocahontas redux, as some have quipped). However, it’s packed full of messages, awareness, and archetypes that are both timeless and are also entirely relevant to this precise moment in time. “Avatar” encourages us to look upon Pandora – and by extension, upon the earth – as a living entity interconnected by all of the organisms and all the elements of our biosphere. Have we become too jaded to hear these messages with open hearts? I trust that we have not. “Avatar” also helps us look upon animals that are killed to be eaten with dignity, to truly see them and to acknowledge the ultimate sacrifice that they’re forced to make. Can we emerge from the fog created by the inhumane, profit-driven slaughterhouse industry and let this basic truth touch our hearts? [Check out animated short, "The Meatrix," if you haven't see it yet.] I believe that we can. Continuing the parallel with Pandora, “Avatar” suggests that every step that we take on our precious and only earth glows. Am I stretching the parallel too far to suggest that this may be actually true? Emerging scientific evidence substantiates this. It has been shown by mycologist, author, and planetary activist Paul Stamets that the forest floor is interconnected by a vast network of mycelium through which there is multi-directional flow of nutrients and information. He calls this “the earth’s natural internet,” and each impression upon this network – each footstep upon the forest floor – is sensed and registered by it. And so, as on Pandora, every step upon healthy soil here on earth does actually glow, in a very unique way that can be detected with subtle instruments and awareness. [It seems likely that this research about mycelial networks was sourced by James Cameron as has was envisioning the interconnected organic nature of Pandora.]

I don’t feel that it’s possible to overstate the importance of the messages that lie just beneath the surface of this film. And once we attune to and receive these messages, whether though “Avatar,” or as a result of a long walk through the hills, or sitting and listening to birdsong, or however we happen to connect with Spirit (each in our own unique way), I feel that the way we live our lives is naturally affected and enriched by this. However this message lands for us and assimilates into our lives – this message of connection with, and dependance upon, something greater than our separate little selves – what matters is that this essential message does land, somehow, and that it’s received, all the way into the fertile cores of our beings. What happens next is up to each of us.

With love for the earth, and all its inhabitants,
Shalom

PS – In this video, below, Paul Stamets, gives an amazing, lucid, compelling presentation at TED about how mushrooms can help save the world. I highly recommend checking it out.

If you have any thoughts, comments, or criticisms, I would love for you to share them in the comments, below.

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What can we do?

I wish I had the answer, but of course I don’t. However, a few things occur to me that I feel can help this situation, which clearly needs a lot of help.

1) Let’s acknowledge water’s true value. All life relies upon water. To deprive a person (or any organism) of clean water for too long is to deprive them of life. If anything in this world can be called truly sacred, I feel that the life-giving, life-sustaining property of water deserves earns this description for it. Given this fact, is access to clean water something that should be entrusted to corporations whose primary objective is to create profit? This leads to the next point…

2) Let’s acknowledge that privatization of municipal water supplies is truly corporate theft from the needy. It’s important to call things by their true names. The multinational corporations that control municipal drinking water supplies are not charities that operate for the common good; they exist to make quarterly profits for their shareholders. Should rich, powerful companies be allowed to control and own water supplies, and sell it back to people who can barely afford – and in many cases cannot afford (and therefore suffer dire consequences) – to pay for it? I believe that they should not, and that this is a violation of the basic human right of all people to clean, safe drinking water.

3) Let’s advocate for clean water as a basic, inalienable human right. Article 31 is a petition to the United Nations that states: “Everyone has the right to clean and accessible water, adequate for the health and well-being of the individual and family, and no one shall be deprived of such access or quality of water due to individual economic circumstance.” Here’s a link to the petition, which I urge you to sign.

4) Let’s pull the plug on bottled water: There is no governmental regulation of the huge bottled water industry (which is currently a roughly $60 billion per-year business). In many cases, it is just packaged tap water, and sometimes it’s worse for us than tap water, containing more contaminants than its (virtually) free counterpart. At the root of it, bottled water is all about corporate profit and corporate control of our water. Bottled water also creates a tremendous amount of plastic waste. [Plastic water bottles aren't truly recyclable; they're "downcyclable." This means that old water bottles aren't used to create new ones, rather, they're used to create other products of reduced functionality. And many water bottles aren't recycled (or downcycled) at all, and end up in landfills.]

For more reasons to end the bottled water habit, check out the article “Five Reasons Not to Drink Bottled Water.” In case the article goes offline, I’ll summarize: 1) Bottled water isn’t a good value, 2) It’s no healthier than tap water, 3) Bottled water means garbage, 4) Bottled water means less attention to public systems, 5) It contributes to the corporatization of water. Additionally, bottled water collection often has a negative impact on the environment surrounding the water bottling plants.

5) Let’s learn about and support the clean water innovators. “Flow” features several innovators who are helping the poor gain increased access to safe drinking water. One such person is Dr. Ashok Gadgil, who created a UV water purification system doesn’t require pressurized water delivery or even electrical outlets. Here’s more information about the success story of his UV Waterworks System. I hope that there will soon be breakthroughs in desalinization technologies, which will make this process much more energy-efficient and which can help provide pure water to people and crops in coastal areas. We know about energy-creation using wind and tidal forces… why not harness these renewable energy resources to desalinize water? I believe that this kind of thinking needs to be supported both in the private sector and in our governments as well.

6) Let’s be mindful of our own water use, on a daily basis. Taking shorter showers in California won’t end water shortages in Bolivia, but it will help us to remain aware of and connected to the issue that’s happening on a global level. Are there ways that we can be more efficient with our water use? Are all of our toilets efficient low-flow? Could we use cisterns for water catchment in our homes? Could a gray water reclamation system be added to our homes for our landscape irrigation? I feel that questions like these are important for all of us to consider, wherever we happen to live.

I have no intention to make myself or anyone else feel guilty about having access to an abundant supply of clean water. To the contrary, I feel that all beings (human and otherwise) should have access to clean, pure, life-sustaining water. I simply write to share my thoughts about what I feel is one of the most important issues of our day. Although most Americans have had the luxury of not having to think about this issue (with increasing numbers of notable exceptions, such as this family whose tap water was actually flammable because of contamination from a nearby gas wells), the fluid, boundary-eroding, universal solvent quality of water ensures that what happens to water happens to all living creatures on this planet.

Water is life. Water is sacred. I feel the time has come for us – individually and collectively – to start treating it as such.

PS – If you’re working on a new water desalinization invention powered by renewable energy or something similar, or if you’ve just heard about innovations like this, or any other related success stories, please let me know. And if you have any thoughts, comments, or suggestions, I’d love to hear them in the comment suggestion. Let’s use the power of group-think to discover new ways to overcome the challenges that are facing us and our precious and only planet.

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Here’s the playlist:

01) “Uncover My Eyes (Remixed by Shalom),” by Piers Faccini / Tearing Sky – 00:00:00
02) “A Very Lucky Year,” by RF / Views of Distant Towns – 01:48:05
03) “Embrace,” by Shen / Outlines - 07:16:25
04) “Space (Remixed by Shalom),” Feat. His Holiness The Dalai Lama w/ Toshinori Kondo & Bill Laswell / Life Space Death -11:49:44
05) “Bridge Of Dust,” by Shen / Outlines – 13:07:62
06) “Cosmological Amitaba Buddha,” by SYnthetic / Spaceships of the Imagination, Vol. 2 – 19:59:31
07) “Ra He’ya (Shulman Remix),” by Sub6 Feat. Michele Adamson / Random Thoughts – 22:52:15
08) “MF Rainbow,” by Dub Alchemist, AKA Gaudi / Sub Signals, Vol. 1 – 32:21:42
09) “Herb is Good,” by Ganja Beats / Peace & Tranquility – 37:08:36
10) “Free Heart,” by Zion Train / Sub Signals, Vol. 1 – 42:09:43
11) “Up Full,” by Midnite & Mystic Vision / Current – 45:55:12
12) “Interlude (Remixed by Shalom),” by Matisyahu / Shake Off the Dust… Arise – 49:48:65
13) “I Dive,” by Shulman Feat. Lee Triffon / Random Thoughts – 50:37:04
14) “Nine (Remixed by Shalom),” by Autechre / Amber – 59:07:56
15) “Father Died (Remixed by Shalom),” spoken words of Leonard Cohen / I’m Your Man – 60:38:14
16) “Nichiren Chant (Remixed by Shalom),” by Buddhist nuns / http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/index.php – 61:09:33
17) “Parachute,” by Shakatura / Galactivation – 61:45:02
18) “Gate Gate Paragate (Remixed by Shalom),” by Thich Nhat Hanh / Drops Of Emptiness – 68:12:19
19) “Zula Dub,” by Tosca / Suzuki in Dub – 69:04:71

Given the title and the spirit of this mix, I think this piece that I created as an homage to my love of Zen works nicely as the album art:

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I mixed “Warm Heart” in the spring of 2009. My intention was to infuse into it many different (and seemingly unrelated) sources of inspiration, including the ecstatic polyrhythms of nature found in frog- and cricket-song, the shamanic odyssey portrayed in the movie, “Renegade,” the teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and a deep reverential love for Gaia, our living mother-planet, of which we’re all a part.

Here’s the CD cover, which, if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll recognize as a still from Renegade.

If you listen closely, you’ll hear several audio samples in the mix from Renegade.

Here’s the playlist:

01) Frog Chorus, Echoes of Nature
02) Excerpt from the movie, “Renegade” (remixed)
03) “Mist” by Vataff Project, from the CD “Kalitz”
04) “Gecko” by Monolake, from the CD “Interstate”
05) “Jack’s Cheese And Bread Snack (Original Mix)” by Ott, from the CD “Blumenkraft”
06) Excerpt from HH The Dalai Lama’s sermon about “The real action of peace” (remixed)
07) “Sinus” by Apparat, from the CD “Shapemodes EP”
08) Excerpt from the movie, “Renegade”, plus the laughter of HH The Dalai Lama (remixed)
09) “Midnight Bloom”, Bluetech vs. Shulman, from the CD “Beneath the Surface”
10) “Want to Hold You Like the Sky Holds the Sun,” by Mystery Artist
11) “Splitting an Atom,” by Ott, from the CD “Blumenkraft”
12) “Mia Nihta Mono Den Ftani”, by Shulman, from the CD “Endless Rhythms of the Beatless Heart”
13) “Prana,” by Anahata, from the CD “Midnight Soul Dive”

Click below here to watch a clip of Renegade:

It takes a while to load, but your patience will be well rewarded.

If you like this mix, I encourage you to support the artists by buying their CDs or downloading their tracks from your favorite paid download site.

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Pronoia, mixed by shalom

Pronoia, the opposite of paranoia, refers to the awareness that the universe is constantly conspiring to make us flourish. [A helpful thing to remember, particularly when times get tough.]

Here’s the track List:

00:00:00 – 00:01:38      01) Donovan “There Is A Mountain” (remixed by Shalom)
00:01:23 – 00:02:08      02) Curd Duca “Pop”
00:01:49 – 00:03:43      03) Alonso del Rio “Guaytinene”
00:03:31 – 00:03:55      04) Alonso del Rio “Fureze, Cholita”
00:03:45 – 00:03:55      05) Shalom “Rain at Dias”
00:03:45 – 00:11:00      06) Kuba “The Road To Find Out”
00:10:50 – 00:15:29      07) Naid “Mantra”
00:15:17 – 00:19:17      08) Chase & Status “Eastern Jam”
00:19:04 – 00:24:01      09) Heyoka “Noospheroid”
00:23:57 – 00:29:15      10) ill.gates “Eggplantation”
00:29:09 – 00:32:21      11) Ved’x “Crusher Dub”
00:32:11 – 00:36:22      12) Ed Solo “Feel Feel the Music” (excerpt)
00:36:19 – 00:41:03      13) Propa Tingz “Hustler’s Concerto”
00:41:00 – 00:42:33      14) Akira Kiteshi “Pinball”
00:42:31 – 00:45:19      15) An-ten-nae “Griot (featuring Samba)”
00:41:03 – 00:45:19      16) Nanda “Yoda Knowledge”
00:44:41 – 00:46:24      17) Shalom “Sub-sound”
00:45:33 – 00:46:14      18) BBC “Rumble in the Jungle”
00:46:17 – 00:49:02      19) Nanda “Conscious Movement”
00:48:59 – 00:54:58      20) Radikal Guru “Strong Dub”
00:54:46 – 00:56:23      21) Audio capture from the movie, “Encounters at the End of the World”
00:56:14 – 01:02:38      22) Heyoka “Lazy Bass”
01:02:38 – 01:07:55      23) Heyoka “Bubble”
01:07:24 – 01:08:53      22) Kaya Project “Hirajoshi”
01:08:41 – 01:11:40      25) Kuba “We’ll Learn”

And here’s one of my pieces, called “Nimita,” which I think works well as the album art:

You’re welcome to download the whole mix, using the button on the right of the player. If you like any of these tracks, I suggest supporting the artists and buying their CDs or downloading their work from iTunes, Beatport, or your favorite legal download service.

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So as I drove home, rather than listen to the radio, I chose to invoke meditative awareness while driving. Alert mind, open eyes, deep breath, shining light on dark water, hands on steering wheel, foot on gas petal, body in car seat. That’s when the interesting experience happened: thought of my friend, Frank, came into my mind so vividly that I chose to pick up my phone and contact him. And just as I touched my phone, it rang… and it was Frank, calling me.

This isn’t an earth-shaking synchronicity or coincidence, but for me, it was a very rich moment, because it helped me to experience in one instant the three main themes of my evening: Inner, Outer, and Intuition. And it helped me to see (without necessarily understanding) that they’re all the same thing.

Although I haven’t stated it explicitly, I’ve already touched on the Inside and Outside themes, above. When I meditate with eyes open, sometimes I feel quite conscious of and influenced by what is around me in the so-called “outer” world – the grain of the wood in the floor of the dharma room, the person whose head kept bobbing during our sit, the small bug who flew into, out of (and back into, and back out of) my field of vision. When I allowed my eyes to close during tonight’s meditation, I felt more absorbed in the “inner” world, with the different levels of absorption that can arise in a focused, eyes-closed meditation.

As you know, Zen doesn’t have much patience for mentally-constructed dualities like this. Talking too much about “inner” and “outer” worlds is a direct invitation to get whapped with a (literal or proverbial) Zen stick. And this is where the third, resolving theme of my evening makes its appearance: Intuition.

In his dharma talk, Kwan Sahn sa-nim shared with us a quote by Zen Master Seung Sahn sa-nim, the Founding Teacher of the Kwan Um School of Zen, who said something to the effect that when we experience intuition, “the inner and the outer disappear.”

This was my experience when I picked up the phone tonight to contact my friend, only to see his inbound call appear in my hand. And this was the truth that I knew that resolved the mental confusions of “inner” and “outer” created by my thoughts about closed-eyed and open-eyed meditation.

How, precisely, this all fits together is far beyond my ability to communicate, and I don’t understand it anyway. But I can feel the relationships. And I’m very grateful to the teachers at Empty Gate for their wise Dharma Talks, and to my friend Frank, for calling me when he did, so all of this could come together in a moment where ideas of “inner” and “outer” disappeared…

… at least for an instant.

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