This semester I'm on sabbatical, and part of my project is to pair poems/short stories with each chapter in Eckhart Tolle's book, The Power of Now.  I use Tolle's book in my Critical Thinking class, and have been winging it each time with the selections of literature.  Now I'm involved in researching some fine poems and stories to use with the book, so I'm not scrambling every minute for the day's material.

Meanwhile, I've been re-reading Tolle's newest book, A New Earth and taking the online Oprah Winfrey/Eckhart Tolle discussion class. (Link: http://www.oprah.com/obc_classic/webcast/archive/anewearth_archive_main....) 

It is incredibly informative and helps with living and breathing.

One of my favorite quotes from chapter seven of A New Earth:

"If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small. That will be your unconscious belief. What are the small things? Ultimately all things are small things because all things are transient."

Playing small.  I notice it, when I'm being small, this little me and my big ego and how reactive it can get.  Much less so than in previous years, but I'm dedicated now to becoming much more aware of when I'm reacting to situations and people instead of just being with them and paying attention.  The only thing that's important is simply being there in the present moment. I practice this as much as possible and feel more joy in life as well as peace, much more connected to what's essential, letting the ego fall by the wayside.  I just returned from a wonderful visit with my sister, niece and her two boys.  I went to my nephews' baseball games, and did many "kid" things.  My nephews are nine and six, and they are definitely always in the present moment.  I took a three mile run, and they scootered along beside me under the spacious Sierra skies.  We were in a neighborhood miles out in the high desert, surrounded by snow-capped mountains.  My nephews brought me wild flowers, feathers, and other treasures from the rocky fields.  Everything was so alive for them.  When we got back to the house, we bounced on the trampoline, yelling and laughing.  They did flips and all kinds of wacky trampoline tricks.  I'm their "crazy aunt."  "Say something funny, auntie!"  So I would.  Laughter, joy, being, playing.  This is mostly what's on the agenda.  I had a blast.

Living big in being, not in ego.  It is amazing when you start to look at how much time living in the ego takes with all its demands and requirements, reactions and dramas. Every situation in life comes down to these choices: acceptance, enjoyment, enthusiasm.  As Eckhart Tolle says in A New Earth: "If you are not in a state of either acceptance, enjoyment or enthusiasm, you are creating suffering for yourself and others."  He also goes on to say, "If you can neither enjoy or bring acceptance to what you do-stop. Otherwise, you are not taking responsibility for the only thing you can really take responsibility for, which also happens to be the one thing that really matters: your state of consciousness.  If you are not taking responsibility for your state of consciousness, you are not taking responsibility for life."

One of my teachers in college once said, "Before you leave the house, make sure you are in a state of grace."  I thought, gee, I'll hardly ever leave the house then.  What a challenge: to live in a state of grace, live in conscious choice of either acceptance, enjoyment, enthusiasm, or stop it all and get it right in yourself.  I feel I've been learning how to do this, or uncovering what I already know and forgot (my nephews showed me constantly this weekend) for many years.  Eckhart Tolle's books are a collection of marvelous signposts, pointing to where the state of grace resides.  It's on the map. It's a very big place, and includes everyone.  Everyone is finding their own way, one way or another.  "All moves slowly in the soul." (Robert Bly) 

It simply feels better to live in non-reaction.  If I can do something helpful about a disturbing situation or person, I will.  But if I perceive someone as offensive or critical or blaming or betraying, I don't need to always retaliate or defend.  I can allow my self image, my ego, to diminish and feel what that feels like inside.  Is it such a big deal?  It doesn't have the power to disturb me unless I give it the power.  It's disturbing or injuring my ego, and I can notice it.  "Well, there that thing goes again, all shook up about this person, this situation," and usually it's a pattern.  The same old same old.  It's my ego and not me.  Momentarily, I may feel I've been diminished, but actually, with awareness, I'm expanding.  Expanding in consciousness, which is what I really am.  Sure, there are times when action and defense might be necessary to take, it depends, but for the most part, in many daily dramas, no.  Doing nothing provides a sense of peace and opens up more energy to give to the things that bring enthusiasm and enjoyment.

I love reading and working with Eckhart Tolle's books.  They are brilliant.  What we are is life, and life is very big.  Playing small only adds to the suffering.

I once hiked up Mount Shasta with three friends, and we camped a thousand feet from the top.  I stayed up all night, sitting on a boulder by the glacier, listening to the lucid dark.

From A New Earth: "What you see, hear, feel, touch, or think about is only one half of reality, so to speak. It is form. In the teaching of Jesus, it is simply called 'the world,' and the other dimension is 'the kingdom of heaven' or 'eternal life'...The collective disease of humanity is that people are so engrossed in what happens, so hypnotized by the world of fluctuating forms, so absorbed in the content of their lives, they have forgotten the essence, that which is beyond content, beyond form, beyond thought. They are so consumed by time that they have forgotten eternity, which is their origin, their home, their destiny. Eternity is the living reality of who you are."

This is what I felt when I was at the top of Mount Shasta.  The mountain top was inside, too.  And the lucid dark, the stars, the moon, Eternity.  It was Immensity.  Essence.  Me and you and what we call God.  It was Life.

A poem by Lao Tzu to use with Eckhart Tolle's book for my Critical Thinking class:

If there is to be peace in the world,
there must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
there must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
there must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
there must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
there must be peace in the heart.