Learn from the Body

Many people in the west talk about the need to find one's self. Every year, Americans spend big bucks on shrinks and self improvement books to help track down this elusive self. Most of these so-called solutions look for the answers in our heads.

But what about the body?

In his important, must-read book Holding The Center, Richard Strozzi Heckler writes about learning from the wisdom of the body: “I developed practices that revealed how attitudes and moods were bodily, not mental phenomena. I helped them become observers of their bodies, and others’ bodies in order to gain control over their automatic and often destructive moods and emotions.”

Having a daily practice - like yoga, martial arts, dance, running - is an important way to tap into the wisdom of the body.

Yes, they keep us physically fit, but they also offer something much more important: self-awareness. In times of uncertainty, a daily practice can keep us grounded and rooted in our bodies.

Find a practice and give it a try. I promise you will be glad you did!

The Magic of Tea

Are you looking for a way to meditate but are not really sure where to start? How about starting with a simple cup of tea!

Tea is a meditation. It slows you down and makes you more mindful and aware of the world around you.

It is nearly impossible to gulp it down and rush through it the way you might do other things. It’s a full-bodied sensory experience – like the finest of wines – and you are along for the ride.

Like meditation, drinking a cup of tea is about entering into the NOW!

Thick Nhat Hanh says it best of all: “Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis
 on which the earth revolves - slowly, evenly, without
 rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment.
 Only this moment is life.”

Enjoy a cup today!

The Stillpoint

The last interview of The Great Lesson movie takes place next Tuesday with dance visionary and recording artist Gabrielle Roth. Check out some lyrical bliss from her book Sweat Your Prayers:

"I want to take you to a place of pure magic, where everything goes and nothing stops, like a twenty four hour roadside café with the best jukebox you can imagine. Only in this place, you don’t listen to jazz, you become it. All your parts jam. It’s the place athletes call the ‘zone,’ Buddhists call ‘satori,’ and ravers call ‘trance.’ I call it the Silver Desert. It’s a place of pure light that holds the dark within it. It’s a place of pure rhythm that holds the stillpoint. It’s a place within you."

The Traveler

"I don't want to hurry it. That itself is a poisonous twentieth-century attitude. When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things."
Robert Pirsig Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance


In this modern, technological age, most of us find ourselves working faster and faster around the clock to keep up. But in Rolf Pott's amazing book Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, he encourages us to "slow down." Whether at home or abroad, we should always have the mindset of a traveler.

The traveler doesn't rely on routine, she sees and experiences everything as though for the first time. In this way, all of the senses come alive. The traveler goes about her day fully present - living in the moment.

Potts writes: "If travel truly is in the journey and not the destination, if travel really is an attitude of awareness and openness to new things, then any moment can be considered travel...Explore your hometown as if it were a foreign land, and take an interest in your neighbors as if they were exotic tribesmen."

For at least one day this week, make a point of slowing down! Think of yourself as a traveler even as you walk the streets of your neighborhood, sip coffee in your kitchen or surf the aisles of your local grocery store. Remember - with a shift in mindset, every day has the potential to be a new adventure.

According to Potts, the writer Herman Melville takes it even one step further. Melville writes about perhaps the most important kind of traveling of all - the kind that explores the inner country of one's own self: "'What does thou think then of seeing the world... Can't ye see the world where you stand?'"

Brand new "Great Lesson" movie teaser videos

Check out these new teaser videos for our upcoming movie, The Great Lesson. The short videos feature the amazing and inspiring Tom Crum, Sean Brawley, and Bruce Lipton. Much more to come!!

Changing Expectations to Preferences

According to Jerry Lynch and Chungliang Al Huang, changing expectations to preferences is a powerful way to return to the present moment. Here is a short excerpt from their must-read, classic book Thinking Body Dancing Mind:

"Expectations block your development and limit your horizons...When you have an expectation, you are confident that something will turn out in a particular way. You may be looking forward to it, as if it were due to happen. Looking forward, however, distracts you from the moment - the task at hand. In the process, you become unfocused and uncentered, pressured and anxious, which interferes with your performance. When you do not tie yourself to expectations or preconceived notions, you begin to see and understand yourself and your world. You become open to endless possibilities, free to change and create enormous personal power . You, like a samurai warrior, expect nothing and become ready for anything..."

"When you put aside expectations, you accept that you can't control your future, only influence it. To help in this, focus on the direction in which your feet are pointed at each moment, and establish a strong preference instead of an expectation. A preference presupposes that you have less concern for the outcome, yet you still direct your efforts along the path of excellent performance. You keep yourself open to possibilities for greater expansion rather than limit yourself with defined expectations."

The World's Greatest Lie

"Everyone believes the world's greatest lie..." says the mysterious old man.

"What is the world's greatest lie?" the little boy asks.

The old man replies, "It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie..."

"To realize one's Personal Legend is a person's only real obligation. All things are one.

"And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."

(An excerpt from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. A fable about following your dreams.)