billkingsbury (Page 4)

These were paradoxes: healthy, useful discussions where both sides of an ideological divide had a valid point and the country was better off when compromise landed in the middle.

I want to remind you who you are. Part energy, part matter. Part divine, part conventional. Part universal, part differentiated. Part interbeing with all of existence, part condensed into a seemingly separate self.

Have you heard it, too?  People are looking forward to getting back to normal. I smell a problem. You cannot “look forward” and “go back.”

Steve Jobs, Mu, Ma and Zen: Andy Robins explores something quite removed from the news of the day.

I write on the cusp of the biggest presidential election of my lifetime – and I’ve lived a long time. 

Embodiment is trending. At a time of deep divisions and discontent, the dissociations of head from heart, of talk from walk, of action from a felt sense of its consequences, are wholly inadequate for dealing with the wicked issues we face. So it’s not surprising that an antidote is resonating in the Zeitgeist, what many herald as an emerging stage of human development in which the clever head re-integrates with the deep wisdom of the body. Embodied leadership is showing the way.

Wait, does the word “radicalized” scare you? It scared me the first time I used it. But it freed me, too. It freed me to be more ambitious about what I want from police, the legal system, and myself. 

From a global pandemic, to rising racism, division, tempers and temperatures, it’s easy to get triggered in this time by a sense of urgency or helplessness, anxiety or depression. Yet there is a way to lead into this time, making the difference that is ours to make. That way, grounded in the 1500-year tradition of physical Zen training moves us beyond a struggling self, where we can be in a mess without being a mess.

It’s one of the most asked questions of these Covid-upset, wildly divisive and turbulent times: How are you? Often we give and receive fairly superficial answers to this question. Recently, I’ve noticed a lot more people struggling with how they are or feeling conflicted in how they answer.