Intention and Effort; Sadness and Depression; Working With the Feeling of Burden, and a Christmas Story

January 8, 2020 Wednesday Evening, Awakened Heart Class

Barbara: Good evening to you, and welcome to semester two of Awakened Heart. Some of you have read the chapter, some of you may not have read it, so I’m going to give a little information here from the chapter before Aaron comes in and starts to talk.

We can so easily get caught in trying to fix ourselves—

I want to be a kinder person…

I want to be more active, not be lazy…

I want to be more generous…

I want to go on a diet. I want to lose 100 lbs…

I want to stop eating any kind of bad form of food—no more sugar, no more this and this and this…

We have to understand where our attention is, and what grounds that intention.

(taking a break for technical issues)

Tonight, a focus on intention and effort. Before we offer effort, we have to know what our intention is, and we want to offer effort from a skillful place. I think I’m just going to get out of the way and let Aaron say this. Barbara saying goodbye for now, and Aaron will come in and I’ll let him give his talk…

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. I’m glad to see you all. I hope you all had a joyful holiday. For those who are new to the class, welcome. We’re glad to have you here. Because the rest of the class has been going since September, some of it may feel a bit out of reach. Don’t worry about that. If there are things you do not understand, just let them go. A transcript will be available. The video will be available. You can listen and read the material. And we’ll help you.

You all have access to the chapter, so I’m not going to repeat what I said in 1997, 23 years ago. If you have the electronic version, it’s on page 51, otherwise, it’s on page 59. Part 6.

I don’t want to waste your time repeating what you can read. Let’s unpack this a bit, talk about it in a broader sense.

We all aspire to certain things, and they may be more mundane or more spiritual. You probably aspire to be more loving people. What’s wrong with you now? I don’t see anything wrong with you now. What is unloving about you? You might tell me, “I get angry, Aaron.” Well, welcome to the human race. You were born with an emotional body— yes, anger will arise. Not a problem. “I take that anger out on other people, Aaron.” Well, here might be an aspiration to learn how to not misuse my anger so it does harm.

Another of you might tell me, “I’m not as healthy as I want to be.” Well, what’s unhealthy? “I eat too much this or that. I don’t eat enough of this or that. I need to fix this.” Whoa—fix? That’s a word that catches my attention. You need to attend to. Fix? There’s nothing to fix; you’re just right the way you are. And you want to pay attention to your diet so you can be more healthy. But when you say, “I have to fix myself,” wholesome effort cannot arise from that word “fix”. Wholesome effort can only arise from a place of love.

Then, the next question is, how do I get to that place of love? This is basically what we’ve been talking about all the first semester, access to that within you which is already awake, already loving, already beautiful. Coming to know that in yourself. Coming to trust that in yourself.

You are human, and there is the broad range of the very highest spiritual essence of your being and the human that is hurt and afraid and confused. You can never open to that highest core of your being by attacking the human that you are, but only through kindness.

So, the first step to wholesome effort is understanding your intention and the ground for that intention. Or plural: intentions and the grounds for those intentions. Do you want to become a kinder person because it’s a joy to be kind in the world and to connect with people, or do you want to become a kinder person because you do not feel loved by others? You feel unworthy and afraid, and you think, “If only I were kinder, people would love me.” It’s not going to work. You may become the kindest person in the world, but if you don’t understand the root of your self-negation, you’re going to continue not to love yourself. And if you don’t love yourself, how can you expect others to love you? They may actually love you. But, start with yourself, with loving yourself.

Then we ask the next question: What blocks my opening to myself with loving kindness, with compassion? Why am I so hard on myself? Or, phrased a different way, what do I get out of holding onto a belief that I am unworthy or unlovable, that I am not enough? What do I gain from that belief? Now, we don’t want to go into this psychologically. It may be true that you suffered some kind of verbal or even physical abuse as a child. That you were taught as a child that you were not worthy. Let’s let that go for now. The question still remains: What do you get by holding onto that belief? What grounds it?

Again, stepping back from the psychological, because it’s easy to say, “Well, it makes me feel safe,” for example. If I believe I’m unworthy and unlovable, then I can’t be hurt by others not loving me. Really? You keep hoping they’ll break through this armor and will love you and show you that you are lovable, but no one can convince you you are lovable unless you learn to love yourself.

What do you get out of holding onto this belief? When we take that into meditation and really look, we start to see how ancient it is; really an existential kind of belief. “If I were truly worthy, I would have more power to control the joys and sorrows of my life.” That’s one part of it. I want to be able to change things, and I don’t know how. So if I move into a belief that I simply am not good enough to do it, then I can drop the whole idea, the whole intention of overcoming this kind of self-negativity.

What would it mean to truly love yourself? What would need to release? How much ancient anger might need to release? What do you gain to holding onto that anger? How many old stories might need to be released? What do you gain by holding those old stories? Are you ready to let go? It really is as simple as that.

We come to the intention not from a place of fear that says, “If I fix myself, then I will be lovable.” We come to the intention by finding the place of true joy and radiance in the self.

Each of you take a minute to look at yourself. Find something in yourself that you truly appreciate, some quality. The ability to make others laugh or smile. True generosity. Ease of laughter. Strong energy. Real gratitude for the beauty you see in the world around you. These are just a few of the thousands of things you could truly appreciate about yourself.

I asked Barbara this earlier, to pick one quality, quick! Not to think about it. She said, “I’m reliable.” Okay, that’s a good quality. It’s certainly not her most important quality, in my mind. But I can see why she trusts that quality in herself. She’s reliable.

Find something. Two minutes of quiet— please think about it. I don’t want to give you too much time, here, or you’ll look at the quality and you’ll say, “Maybe not, maybe not that one. Maybe I need a different one.” Did you find something? Thumbs up; did you find something? Okay.

Intention comes from this aspect of you that is able to hold the truth of that particular quality and know, yes, this applies to me: I’m kind; I’m joyful; I’m loving; I’m reliable; I like to smile. I use a scent that I think smells good, so I try to please others with a lovely scent. Whatever it is—I’m a good cook; whatever it is. This is something you can count on in yourself. It’s something that is reliable. Remember, this is not you. It does not define you. It’s simply a character trait that you know you can count on, most of the time.

When you reflect on an intention, ask yourself next: How can I ground my intention in this quality? This would just be one ground. The tree has many roots, it doesn’t have just one. Many roots hold the tree up. But here is one root. Think about an intention that you have, and then ask yourself, how can I ground my effort in this quality? How can this quality support my effort?

Now let me give you an example. Maybe your intention for right now is to work more skillfully with anger in the coming year. Anger arises, and you may not throw it back at people, but it contracts you. Your whole energy field closes down.

Now, perhaps the trait that you found was joy, “I’m a joyful person.” Ah, feeling anger. Taking the anger into the place of joy within me. Can I connect with joy and watch, as I rest in the joyful essence of being, what happens to the anger? Does the joy help to give that anger space to dissolve?

Same issue with anger. “I am a patient person.” That was your reflection. Okay, can you be patient with your anger? Give it space. Your anger is a little child having a temper tantrum. When I say “can you?”, I phrase that poorly. You can be patient with your anger. You have free will. You only think you can’t be patient with your anger. But I know you can. It will take practice.

Maybe your thought of what’s a strong quality in you is, “I’m a great cook.” Here is anger. Okay, take that anger into the kitchen and start to prepare something. Just chop some vegetables. At first, (contracted sound), and gradually, ahhh… Cutting. Feeling the love in the vegetables and the energy in them. See how it transforms the anger.

Every positive quality you have is a root, a ground, that you can turn to to help support your intentions. Begin to find a few that will help you no matter how far afield it seems. If you thought, “I’m going to be less sad, less depressed,” well first of all, how can you turn off sadness? You can’t. But right there with sadness is joy. What brings you joy? Preparing food—go in and prepare the food. Listening to music. Watching your plants patiently to see the new growth in them. Bringing in patience. Finding the joy in watching the plants. What happens to the sadness? What happens to the anger?

So, we don’t start with “I will fix myself.” We start with an intention arisen from the loving heart. “I aspire to this.” I like the word “aspire”. It’s similar to “I choose to” but it’s less “I must” and more “I hope to invite.” I aspire to cultivate this quality. Cultivate it the way you would cultivate your garden plants. You don’t stand in front of your plants and yell at them and say, “Grow! Grow! Grow!” You stand in front of them and offer them love. You ask them, “What do you need now in order to thrive?”

For there to be effort, there must be intention, an aspiration, and then, effort. As part of that effort (and I spoke about this 23 years ago in the chapter, I don’t know what page), joy in the aspiration. Self-confidence and endurance. I said I’m not going to repeat the chapter, so let me unpack this a bit but not repeat what I said in the chapter.

Are you going to go to the gym and exercise everyday to fix yourself? No joy in that. Where is the joy? Can you go into the gym and do far less exercise and just mindfully move your body and feel how good it feels? Begin to feel the strength and energy in your body. Feel the joy in it.

Anger has arisen. The aspiration not to take out my anger on others, or on myself. Breathing and coming back to the place we’ve talked about all the first semester, the awakened heart. Coming back to that which is beautiful and awake in you. Right there with anger is joy, is love. But sometimes it’s harder to feel love; joy may be more accessible.

Sometimes you may find yourself laughing at yourself, at how angry you are over this, what ultimately is a triviality. Yesterday, Barbara drove into the car wash—her car here, cars in front of her. There was nobody else behind her. The cars in front were not moving so she pulled this way, way across, to move into the next lane. Then another car pulled up. He was here. When that car moved, she started to pull ahead, but this driver also started to pull ahead and caused $4000 worth of damage to her car. He was texting. He was sitting there waiting for his turn; he was texting. He probably, out of the corner of his eye, saw the car ahead move. Somehow he missed Barbara’s big van in front of him. So, he smashed into her. Well, she was furious. “He smashed my car!” They were only going 3mph, there at the car wash, but he did enough damage that it will be a major repair. She has a $1000 deductible, so she’s looking at that.

Anger, anger. It took an hour. First, the local police came, but they said this is out of Ann Arbor jurisdiction. The township police had to come. She had an hour to sit in her car, stewing, angry. Finally I said one of my favorite phrases to Barbara, “Are you enjoying your anger?” She saw that the anger was giving her a sense of power, some way to fix this very annoying situation. She began to laugh. She said, “Yeah, I’m enjoying it, Aaron. Give me about 10 more minutes to enjoy it, and then maybe I can just let it go.” So, after a few minutes she began to recite that metta chant: metta, karuna, mudita, upekkha…

She calmed down. When the police finally arrived, she was able to just describe what happened. I’m sure he did not deny that he was texting. He probably said, “She pulled in in front of me.” But since he hit in the middle of her car and not the front, obviously since they’re only going 1 or 2 miles per hour, how could she have pulled in in front of him just then?

So, however it works out. The question is, how could she come to a point—and it took 45 minutes—how could she come to a point to relax and say, “Okay, release the anger. It’s an annoyance. It will cost whatever it costs. I’ll lose the use of my car for whatever weeks I lose it. It will all be okay in the end. This is how human incarnation is—things arise and they pass away. Everything changes. Relax; let it go. It’s not worth being angry about.”

There are things in the world where, let’s use the environmental issues. Now there’s a place where you might want to bring up some true irritation. But a tap to the car? Okay, let it go.

Today, when she went to the collision place and they told her the extent of the damage, and this man here, with is front fender, which was pushed in a little bit—he had nowhere near the damage that he did to her—anger came up again. “He should have $4000 worth of damage to his car!” Ahh, another favorite of mine: Is that so? Just anger. Breathing in, I am aware of the anger. Breathing out, I smile to the anger, I take care of the anger. Holding the intention. Now, Barbara does not have a lot of anger in her life, so this is not one of her strong intentions, not to take out her anger in the world on people. But it’s always part of her intention, not to do harm with her emotions. Ahhh…

When you’re angry, everyone can feel that energy. Come back and take care of it. It doesn’t make you a bad person, that you’re feeling angry, but take care of it.

Sadness, depression. I’m sure every one of you has felt sad in the past week; some of you, maybe intensely sad. Are you ready to move past it, holding the intention and the aspiration to stop being so caught in negative thought, in sadness in depression, in grief? I’m not saying to get rid of grief, get rid of sadness, but pay attention: Here is sadness. Right here with this sadness in this moment, where is that which knows it has the ability to love?

Or, here is where you come to your own strengths. Right here with sadness, where is the part of me that is ready to go into the kitchen and bake cookies or make a stew? Where is the part of me that is able to go and play some beautiful music, or paint a painting? Can doing these things that bring joy help me find, right there with sadness, that which is not sad, right there with that which is depressed, that which is not depressed?

I want to separate sadness from depression. Depression is really a closure of energy. Let’s talk about that in a bit. Sadness is more about the stories: “I want this; I didn’t get that.” Maybe I feel unworthy, etc. So, right here with the sadness, where is joy? This is not denial of the sadness but knowing true joy. “Oh, it’s nice—I like the joy.” Or, “No, I feel too sad. I don’t want to feel joyful right now.” Okay, you’re not forced to feel joyful. Just know that you have a choice, that there is joy in your because this is your essence. You are light; you are love. Joy is the base of your being.

I’m enjoying the mother hugging her child, here. That’s bringing me a lot of joy. Welcome—I’m glad you’re here. Welcome to your daughter. I’m glad she’s there in your arms.

I said depression is different because depression is more about caught energy. With depression, one may want to ask, where is the open energy? To begin to work with the chakras, to find what helps support the open flow of energy. As a… balance to the depression, so that instead of it’s all being depression, there’s a bit more balance. No statement, “I shouldn’t be depressed.” or “I won’t be depressed.” Just, “In this moment, I feel depressed. My energy field is contracted. Everything in the world feels dark and drawn. I choose to open my energy.” So, the aspiration, and the aspiration coming from a place of joy, of love, of delight. Not of force and fix-it, make me better; joy and ease.

A third step, here, is self-confidence. I do mention these steps in the chapter. Self-confidence comes from knowing the truth of your being. If you’ve been beaten down a lot in your life, told you’re no good, you’re unworthy, you’re stupid, you’re ugly, you can’t do anything right, you’re clumsy, it’s hard to have any self-confidence. This, then, becomes the focus. So we find what seems most to ask for strengthening in the self, to awaken in the self. What does it mean to awaken confidence in myself?

You might try something very simple that you’re good at. If you’re a musician, you might sing or play music. If you’re an artist, go and paint. If you’re an athlete, go and run, or play tennis or racquetball, bowl a few rounds. Remember, “I do have these strengths.” But most important, as you do these things mindfully, experience what self-confidence feels like. What is the experience of feeling sure of myself? Because you can’t feel total lack of confidence in every area of your life. There’s something you’ll be good at. Maybe you’re good at painting your nails. Go out and sit down and give yourself a manicure or pedicure. Make it beautiful. Paint little flowers on the nails. Use a toothpick and bright colors. Make them exquisite nails, and say, “Ah, that’s something I’m good at.” Whatever it may be.

One friend, when he became depressed and angry, he was a wonderful builder. He actually built himself a house, at one point. But when he was feeling depressed and contracted, he would just start any kind of a building project. It could be something simple, like a birdhouse, or just a pretty little box. He would work on it for a few hours. He would completely get involved in it, and his would open and his energy field would open, and there would be a sense of confidence—”Yes, I’m not a total failure. I can build a pretty little box.” I can paint my nails beautifully. I can smile. Just walk down the street and smile at people and have them smile back. And remember, “Yes, I have a nice smile.” And invite people to smile back. These are the ways that you cultivate self-confidence.

Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint. You will work with all of these different tools and techniques, and very gradually start to shift your perspective. Only gradually to find the place where some of the negative self thoughts don’t come up as quickly, or they don’t stick as tight. You really have to give them time to fall off. If you walk into the fields in the autumn with fleece pants, all the burrs are going to stick to your pants. Maybe when you walk in the woods in the fall you don’t want to wear fleece pants. But if you did, if you were forgetful and you have mittens on because it’s cold, and you start pulling off the burrs with your mittens, what’s going to happen? Then you have burrs all over your pants and all over your mittens. Ahh… Everything is impermanent. These burrs caught on your pants—take them home, take them off. Hang them in the laundry room, or somewhere. Give them a week or two. The burrs will probably dry up and fall off. Can you get the metaphor, here? Patience.

And the last quality I want to discuss: endurance. Until you learn to wear pants—the denims with no open fabric where burrs can stick—burrs are going to stick. You’re going to need patience with yourself and what I call the quality of endurance.

Not all of you have read the chapter, so I want to read just this one bit of it. I don’t know what page this is, but it’s 4 or 5 pages into the chapter.

What do I mean by endurance? I want to share a story with you, of a Japanese Buddhist priest, an abbot. It was a time when Russians had taken over that particular area of China. The Japanese people who lived there were told they must leave and go back to Japanese territory but only those who were capable of walking out of their home on their own two feet might go. They were packed into buses to be transported back into Japan, but they were forced at gunpoint to leave the babies behind. All of the townsfolk were not moved at once; but, this block and then that block. After the parents were packed into the buses and taken away, not knowing what would befall their babies, the Russian authorities simply came and boarded up the houses, leaving those infants to a dreadful fate.

This abbot had chosen to stay. What he did was, at night after curfew, to sneak out, wind his way through dark alleys and listen. If he heard a whimper or cry, then very stealthily, because if he was heard he would be killed, very stealthily he would pull the boards off a window or door, creep in and find the child. In this way he found and brought a great many babies to safety. They were cared for and sneaked out to a secret place. Then people began to get sick with some kind of fever, maybe typhoid; the abbot also got sick. He was very thin, feverish, but he did not stop. He knew he had only a certain amount of time before these children died. As parents were forced to leave, his rescue was an ongoing process over several weeks. Despite his typhoid, despite his illness, lying in his bed he would think he heard a baby cry, drag himself down the street with his heart open, asking, “Where is this child I need to find?” and allow himself to be drawn to it. When he heard it he would open that house and rescue the baby. He became famous for what he had done.

He was not driven by fear. He was not driven by ego. He was driven by love. We might call this part of aspiration but it’s really something different. It’s a mixture of aspiration and effort. They come together. Aspiration is only the dream to do; effort can become distorted by ego. But aspiration, clarity and effort married together become joyful, infinite endurance (grounded in love).

Endurance does not mean gritting your teeth and pushing. Endurance means coming back again and again to the place of greatest strength, love, joy, and open heart within. There are reports from people who survived experiences of prisons, concentration camps, terrible situations where most people died. And often when these people were asked, “How did you survive?”, what comes up is, “I found a place of love within me. Because of that place of love, I chose to endure, not to give up.”

You who are not in some kind of a hell realm of a prison—well, maybe you are. These human bodies can be hell realms, can be prisons. But for most of you, there’s at least some joy and lightness in your life. Find the ground for endurance in your intention to make the world a better place for yourself and others. To shift the world from a place of such negativity into a place where light is really accessible to people, where hatred fails and love prevails. Find these intentions in yourself, and know that you have the ability to endure, not with the gritted teeth but with spaciousness and ease.

There is a story of a woman in a concentration camp who was a musician. I don’t remember the details of the story; I heard this long ago. But she persisted in singing, even when she was exhausted. She invited others to sing with her. She found musicians within the camp. She got ahold of some of them who had instruments with them—a few; others, she found instruments for. She helped create some kind of an orchestra. As I said, I do not know the details, only that the story was passed to Barbara and I heard it through her.

Music can live anywhere, including in your heart. Love can live anywhere, and must live in your heart. You have this capacity. This is your human birthright.

Please do not say to yourself, “I should put aside sorrow,” or anger, or fear. “I should overcome.” Rather, say, “I aspire to. I hold the intention to.” And try to trust it is your human birthright.

I’ve said this many times to some of you; to some of you it may be a new statement. This is truly why you came into the incarnation. Your Earth is shifting from a place of more negativity into a place of more light, more love. It is up to each of you whether you are going to contribute more to the negativity, or whether you are willing to simply hold the aspiration: I aspire to open my heart. I aspire to love. I aspire to respond more spaciously to the difficulties.

I will give Barbara credit yesterday. After talking to the policeman, finally—and the man was still texting; the whole hour he was waiting for the policeman he was busy texting, and he was angry at her, “You moved your car in front of me!”—she was able to walk up to him and offer her hand and say, “This has been a trial for both of us. I hope it works out okay for you.” She didn’t say, “I’m sorry.” She didn’t think she had anything to be sorry for. And she didn’t say, “I forgive you,” which would imply her saying, “It’s your fault.” She just said, “I hope it works out okay for both of us.” He didn’t want to take her hand, he just backed away. That’s his choice. But we can always make that overture. She couldn’t have made it in the first half hour but given enough time she could make it.

Do you want to live in a world of joy, of peace, of light? You are the joy and peace and light of the world, and you are the anger and darkness and fear. But these are not you; they are simply burrs that have come up and stuck on you. And if you practice skillfully, they will fall off, revealing the light, revealing the love. This is your free will choice.

As you hold these aspirations, please try to trust me a bit when I say you are light, you are love. “Me? I’m a horrible person!” Maybe you are, but you are also light and love. Try to trust that a bit. Remember the truth of who you are.

Let us return full circle to skillful effort, which always comes from a place of the loving heart, and never from a place of shaming the self, getting behind the self and kicking, but rather, taking the hand gently and leading the self on. “I invite. I invite peacefully. I invite joy. I invite happiness, forgiveness, an open heart. I invite these.” And because they are your true nature, they are already there. This is the wonderful thing. You don’t have to make these qualities, only to find out what blocks them.

You may have window shades or curtains on your window. You may want to block out the light at some times of the day. But then you’re sitting in the room and think, “Why is it so dark in here? Ah, I forgot to open the shade.” The light is there—open the shades! And then, skillful effort—how do I open the shades? How do I reveal the true radiance of this awakened heart? And you can do it.

I want to remind all of you in the class the importance of your meditation practice. You cannot just say, “Alright, I’m going to overcome anger. I’m going to reveal my radiance and light.” Really? Good! Good luck! How are you going to do that? So when you meditate, maybe you’re just sitting there meditating and an itch comes up, big itch. It’s January, there can’t be mosquitoes; what is this itch? I’ve got to scratch this itch! Where did this itch come from? Tension, tension. Just sitting, watching this object, the predominant object that has arisen—itching, burning, tingling. Unpleasant. Watch the aversion to the itch that has come up.

The vipassana practice is vital because through it we start to look at mundane objects arising into our experience and passing away. If it has the nature to arise upon certain conditions, it will arise. You can’t make it go away without tending to the conditions. When you take care of the conditions, it will pass away.

An emotion has arisen—not just an itch but sadness or anger. You can’t force it out but you can watch. Five minutes ago you were sitting without sadness and suddenly there’s sadness. It arose out of conditions. It’s impermanent. It is not me. To claim it to be self is like saying, “These clothes are me, and for the rest of my life, this is how I will look.” Well, tomorrow I may be wearing yellow. These clothes are not me; they’re impermanent.

The sadness is impermanent. The itch is impermanent. Your meditation practice gives you the opportunity to look at these mundane objects that have arisen and watch them dissolve. And if they don’t seem to dissolve, just ask, “Am I defining myself by this object? How else could I relate to this object in a more skillful, spacious way?”

This practice is everything. You cannot get to the outcomes that you are seeking through the intellect but only through the heart. So please do the practice. Please try to practice daily, even if just for 5 or 10 minutes. Eventually you find you like it. Invite yourself. Make yourself a little box, a pretty little box. Wrap it with lovely paper. Wrap the lid and the box separately, and write inside a little slip of paper that says, “Time for meditation.” But the lid on and put it on your night table. Before you go to bed at night, or when you get up in the morning, let this box, with its beautiful wrapping, catch your eye. It’s a gift you’re giving yourself. Open it. “Ah, time for meditation.” Five minutes, half an hour—whatever is right—two minutes. “Time for meditation.” Start to feel the gift of this practice.

(break)

Aaron: (inviting questions and comments) This is our friend, Dorothy Ann. Dorothy Ann has been part of Deep Spring since almost Year 1.

DA: So, this book is from 1997, we did it in spring (further comments). Anyways, I’ve used these wonderful truths for so many years. So many years of wisdom. Thank you. All good.

Aaron: But DA was telling me she comes back to this book again and again and again.

DA: It’s my favorite of all the books.

Aaron: Your favorite of all of my books? Thank you. Do you think it’s worth doing a, whatever work would be needed with it to put it into a normal book form?

DA: Oh yeah…

Aaron: Barbara is overburdened. Let’s put the word out, whether there’s anybody who would like to work with the book, and see if you could transform it into the kind of book that would be a normally published book, and make it accessible.

L: I will edit it for whoever wants to do that.

Aaron: Thank you. It’s one of my favorite books, too, and I’d love to see it put into a more durable form, and that we can get it out on Amazon for readers all over. For now, it’s one of my hidden books; only people who are local have seen it.

Q: I am investigating the work of the Ann Arbor Library. They have a publishing service for local writers.

Aaron: So, let’s go into any questions or comments on my talk tonight.

Q: Talk about Donald Trump. And this war business is so frightening. This business of going to war with Iran.

Aaron: There’s that old quote from one of your presidents: Walk softly, and carry a big stick. That goes well together. Mr. Trump does not know how to walk softly.

In all these areas, whatever persons have offended you, whatever persons seem to be doing something injurious, you can find the balance, the compassion and strength that knows how to say no but says it without hatred and fear. Because if you bring hatred and fear into it, it’s just adding more hatred. If you have a large blaze and you want to put it out, you don’t throw more wood on it. But you also don’t turn your back to it and think it will just burn itself out. You need to take care of it.

This really touches on everything I’ve said tonight. Finding the part within you that’s able to address the person, the issue—people, issues—and clearly say no. To do that, you have to touch the place of fear and anger within yourself and allow it to heal. To find within yourself right there with fear, that which is not afraid. With anger, that which is not angry. It’s hard not to be angry at people who are doing things that threaten our survival. But anger is never going to resolve anger. What will?

Now, in this country you have a wonderful opportunity that many people in the world do not have: You have an election coming up. Get the candidates of your choice in, and do everything you can to support them. But do it with praise for your candidate, not mud-slinging at the other candidate. It’s fine to compare, “Our candidate has this policy. The opposition has that policy that I don’t trust; I’m concerned that it will lead us down a very negative path, so this is why I prefer this policy.” But this is not a statement of hate against the other candidate, or even strong negation. It’s just, “This is my view. I trust my view enough to rest in and hold to my view. But I also offer you the opportunity to hold your view. And I’m not trying to negate you or out-shout you but just to trust.” And we do have to trust the power of love. It’s hard to trust the power of love when there’s so much negativity in the world. Are you going to be a force for light or for darkness?

I want to backtrack one step, here. I’ve said this a bit at the end of my talk. You are volunteers on Earth. You came here with an intention. Some people who are highly negatively polarized may have come with an intention to help pull Earth further and further into darkness, to gain more personal power. Many of you—all of you, certainly, listening to this talk—came into the incarnation with the intention to help shift the Earth into a positively polarized planet, to help this transition into a world of light. Into the Eden you were promised, if I could put it that way.

It takes trust in the possibilities and in yourself, that you can respond with kindness to negativity. That you have the power—not your power, but the power of love—to say no to hatred and negativity. And we look at people like Gandhi, who was successful in doing that; knowing that it would not only not help but would harm his cause to bring in hate and violence. We look at Jesus. We look at Martin Luther King, Jr., and others who really transformed our country back in the 1960’s. If these people had been filled with hatred, they would not have gotten anywhere. —Well, they might have. I can’t say they wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. They might have brought about some change, but not change that could hold itself. It would simply be change created by hatred. So, it’s basically giving energy to negativity, and eventually it will pass away and any gains will be lost. The only way to hold onto those gains is to keep re-centering yourself in your own awakened heart. And it’s hard work.

Remember that every choice that you make has wide-ranging effects toward the negative or toward the positive. Be gentle to yourself. Don’t think, “Oh! What have I done?!” Well, if you’ve erred on the side of anger and expressing anger in hurtful ways, just forgive yourself, apologize, ask forgiveness, and move on. You are human and these things are going to happen.

You’re never, as human, going to become entirely kind and loving, unless you become fully awakened. And that’s probably not going to happen in this lifetime. But that’s okay; you don’t have to be fully awakened to be a buddha.