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I wrote an article a few years ago about the very first lines of my favorite book of wisdom, the Tao te Ching. They go like this:

“The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”

The point of the piece was that the higher truths about God/The Tao/Universe/Nature can’t be understood through language or naming things. In other words, trying to use our minds to comprehend the weightier matters of the universe is futile.

How best then to approach these matters? By sensing them.

The purpose of today’s piece is to expand on the topic of transcending language. If this sounds confusing, here are three examples that illustrate what I mean.

Example #1: Meditating on a single word

The example that fueled the idea for this article came from my meditation practice. For many years one of my go-to cues has involved saying a single word in my head. I’d do it in the last part of my meditation sessions, after I’d calmed down into some level of presence.

All it entails is this: I inhale, then on the exhale I say in my head the word ‘still.’ And just keep doing that.

I’ve found that simply saying ‘still’ on each exhale deepens and perpetuates the stillness I’m already feeling.

Sensing the stillness without saying the word

Here’s the wrinkle I’ve added in the past few weeks. Instead of saying ‘still’ on the exhale, I focus solely on sensing the stillness. It’s subtle.

Why is this “better” for me? What does eliminating words/language from my meditation accomplish?

It allows me to go deeper. To feel even more still.

Why is this? It gets back to those first few lines of the Tao. The naming and speaking of things take us further away from them.

Our souls don’t know the language

It makes sense if you think about it. The soul doesn’t know anything about language or words.

We’re born with a spirit that manifests as energy/shakti/chi coursing through our bodies. That spirit is not of the mind. It’s much deeper and stronger than anything the mind can possibly fathom.

But it’s also elusive. And mysterious. If it wasn’t, we’d know the answers to the big questions of life.

Example #2: Near-death experiences

That brings me to another example, one that blows my mind. It comes from NDEs (near-death experiences), a subject that I’m shocked doesn’t receive more attention.

You’ve heard of the many common experiences of those who have medically died and come back to life, whether from a heart attack, car accident or any number of causes.

The one that I find most consequential is of those who report being next to a brilliant, white light. That light gives them a feeling of total and complete love and acceptance. It also tells the near-dead not to worry. That everything is going to be okay.

But here’s the catch: These people all say that this white light (God? Who knows?) didn’t actually speak to them. It just somehow communicated the above in a way they couldn’t explain.

That, to me, is the perfect example of how the higher power/higher plane communicates in ways other than language.

Example #3: Movie dates

In my early dating years (high school) I used to take girls to movies. Mostly because I loved movies. Who doesn’t?

But I remember my dad always telling me, “Why do you take a date to the movies? You’re just sitting there in the dark. Go out for dinner where you can talk and get to know each other.”

Well, here’s the thing. I look back and see that two relative strangers watching a movie together felt intimate to me. It was if our souls would come out and get to know each other while our egoic minds stayed out of it. No talking. Just our energies commingling. That’s how it felt to me.

The supposition of this piece, then, is that removing the barrier of language in certain areas of our lives will serve to deepen our connection to this subtle and mysterious higher power.

How can we take that idea and make it useful to us in some practical way? Consider trying this no-language thing in these three situations, and any others that strike your fancy:

1. Meditation: If you meditate and use word cues as part of your practice, try dispensing with the words for part of a session. Sense them without saying them. See how it goes.

I already mentioned the use of ‘still.’ I also frequently use ‘relax’ in the early part of a session when doing the body scan. And of course, ‘neck,’ ‘hand,’ ‘jaw,’ and several other body parts. I’ve been sensing those, too, rather saying the words in my head.

2. Any Beautiful Scene: Let’s say you’re watching an absolutely sublime sunset; pinks, reds, and oranges mingling to form a colorful concoction of natural beauty that knocks your socks off.

Try something different. Resist the temptation of saying to yourself or even somebody who’s watching with you, “Wow, what an amazing sunset! Look at the amalgam of brilliant colors!”

Instead, try following your breath a few times. Then look at the sunset from a place of pure presence. No thought. No words. No describing. No commenting.

Commune with the sunset

Let your conscious presence commune with the sunset. Let the natural you commingle with this other part of nature…the sunset.

Granted, this can be hard. I’m one of those who get excited about things and want to share my thoughts, emotions, and enthusiasm with others. Or with myself if I’m alone.

The problem is that when we do this, we cheat ourselves out of deeper, more profound experiences.

3. Listening to music: When listening to one of your favorite songs, one that transports you to that other realm, try to be there completely. In the moment. Experiencing the sounds of the music with no commentary in your head.

Treat the music like that sublime sunset. Just you and it communing with each other. Dancing with each other. No words. No language. No thinking. No involving the mind.

The takeaway

The key point here is to take the middleman, language, out of certain situations so that the higher power in us can commune with the higher power “out there.”

It’s about learning to communicate in the mysterious language of the Universe.

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I believe the Tao Te Ching is the wisest book ever written. Thought to be written in China by Lao Tzu some 2,500 years ago, the Tao is a guidebook on how to live life.

What does Lao Tzu mean by the Tao? Here’s the definition given in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

“The unconditional and unknowable source and guiding principle of all reality.”

One could say that God and the Tao are interchangeable. Or the Tao and nature. Or this: The Tao is what existed before the Big Bang occurred 13.8 billion years ago.

The passage I’m writing about today is chapter 33. This is it:

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.

Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.”

What Lao Tzu is saying here is that the riches of life are found inside us.

When I come across wisdom like this that was imparted so long ago and that resonates with me, you know what I do? I lean in. And I listen.

Putting chapter 33 into action

What would listening to this Tao nugget entail for us?

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That Buddha was one wise dude.

His main teaching was that suffering comes from wanting things to be a certain way. Stop doing that and the suffering falls away.

So powerful. So simple. So true.

But as impactful to me is his emphasis on the concept of impermanence. What is that?

Here’s how Mr. AI explains impermanence:

“The Buddhist teaching that nothing in the physical or mental world lasts forever; a fundamental law of nature stating that all things are constantly changing, in a state of flux, and will eventually dissolve.”

Bottom line: Things come…and they go. What things? Everything.

I’m sure many of you are familiar with impermanence, but it’s worth taking a deep dive.

My son influenced this article

Our vehicle for getting there will be my 18-year-old son, Hank, who inspired this article.

Hank is the eldest of our three children. And guess where he’s headed this fall?

College. Specifically, the University of Washington in Seattle.

In other words, he’s the first chick leaving our nest. Any of you parents out there probably know where this is going.

Some words about Hank

Before getting to impermanence and Hank, a few words about him are necessary. Rather than throw out superlatives, I’m going to tell a story that captures his essence.

When my dad died in 2015 Hank was seven years old. After the memorial service, the family and a few close friends drove to the cemetery to place his ash-filled urn in the ground, next to my mom who’d passed away in 2009.

Those six years after my mom passed were tough for my dad. His dementia, which had begun during my mom’s final years, worsened gradually with each passing year. He would have passed much sooner if not for…

Florinda.

A godsend named Florinda

An immigrant from Guatemala, Florinda had nannied for my sister’s kids and then stayed on for several more years. Once it became clear that my parents needed full-time help, she went to work caring for them.

And what a job she did. My mom called her a godsend.

After my mom passed, Florinda showered my dad with attention. Five days a week. For six years.

When my dad died in October of 2015, it her hard. The main focus of her life for six years was gone.

The passing of the urn

So there we all were at the cemetery. About 25 of us; my brothers, sisters, the grandkids and a few others.

Hank stood next to me, holding my hand.

We passed the urn from person to person, each saying a final goodbye to Walter B. Gerken. It was somber, but everything went relatively smoothly until the urn reached Florinda…

And she started sobbing. Loudly.

Big-hearted Hank

After a few moments of this, something happened that I’ll never forget as long as I live.

Hank shook his hand free of mine.

Then he walked the fifteen feet or so over to Florinda, put his arms around her and hugged her.

Totally on his own. I didn’t nudge him. Nobody did. He just did it.

That’s Hank. He came into this world empathetic, compassionate and loving.

Why did I devote 400 words to describing Hank? To give you an idea of how hard it is for me and my wife to deal with his impending flight from our nest.

Examples of impermanence

Which brings us, finally, to impermanence. Things come, and they go. What things? Everything.

Leaves appear on trees in the spring. They grow through the summer. Turn beautiful shades in the fall…and then fall to the ground. Over and over. Every year. Century after century.

Kodak was founded in 1880 and thrived as photography took hold. The advent of digital cameras forced the company to fold in 2013. It came. It grew. It went.

Hank was born in 2008. His childhood was marked by sports, friends and a wicked sense of humor.

Funny guy Hank

Two funny stories on that last one.

His third-grade teacher told us that she asked the kids to come up with words ending in ‘light’; like flashlight, gaslight, etc. Hank thrust his hand in the air and said, “Bud Light!”

More recently, he got mad at me about something then said to me, because I supposedly look like Jeff Bezos, “Thank you, Jeff Bezos, without the money!”

And now that childhood is coming to an end. Yes, childhood, too, is impermanent.

We’re born. We grow up. Then we leave the nest.

How we deal with impermanence

So what’s the point of all this? It’s simple: The implications for how we deal with the reality of impermanence are enormous.

Let’s use Hank leaving for college as an example. One option I have is to dwell on it incessantly and cry myself to sleep every night. Not good.

The other is to accept the impermanent nature of life and see his leaving the nest as a manifestation of that. Which doesn’t mean doing cartwheels and jumping for joy that he’s leaving. That would be phony and a suppression of my true feelings.

Accepting reality

What it would mean is feeling the sadness of seeing him go, while at the same time accepting the inevitably of it. Which is what I have been doing for months and, if I’m being honest, years.

Each time I walk up our stairs and go past his room, I feel a pang of sadness knowing that in a few months he won’t be in there.

But the good thing about impermanence is that it works both ways. Because the sad feelings around Hank leaving are also impermanent. They arise, I feel them, and then they pass.

The key is that we need to allow them to pass. How? By feeling the feelings and not resisting them. Doing just that is one of the keys to our overall well-being.

The long and the short of it

What impermanence boils down to is accepting the reality of life, especially that big kahuna of them all: We’re born, we live and then we die.

I’ve found that the more spiritual work I do with meditation and mindfulness, the more okay I am with that reality. I think that’s because the more ego I shed, the greater influence my consciousness has in my life. And with that comes the sense that that consciousness, which is just energy, will live on in some capacity once my body gives out.

But no matter how conscious I’ve become, I’m sure about one thing.

My tear ducts are going to get a helluva workout in the coming months.

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My favorite spiritual teacher Michael Singer has offered his tug of war teaching in several talks I’ve listened to. As usual, it is pithy, powerful and wise.

Let’s get into it with this from my AI pal:

“A tug of war is a competitive sporting game where two teams pull on opposite ends of a rope, each trying to drag the other across a center line. Metaphorically, it refers to any intense power struggle or conflict where two parties compete for control or dominance.”

Winning a tug of war requires strength, energy, and determination.

Most of us Earthlings live our lives this way. Only, instead of equal numbers of people on each team, it’s us on one end and “the world” on the other.

What do I mean by “the world”?

- Dealing with the constant push and pull that comes with marriage.

- Driving in heavy traffic while we desperately try to get to work for an important client presentation.

- Battling it out every day at work with a colleague you don’t like who’s vying for the same promotion.

- Fighting subterranean battles with your passive-aggressive mother-in-law when she comes over for dinner every Sunday.

- Navigating the lion’s den of loony tunes moms and dads at your kid’s preschool.

It’s the world that we deal with every day. And most of us fight our worlds like it’s a tug of war.

The good news is that sometimes we’re successful in pulling the world our way. We get the promotion. You get along with your mother-in-law at Thanksgiving. You and your spouse go through a good phase.

We never win long-term

The bad news is that this never, and I mean never, lasts. After a while, we’re inevitably back to straining hard to, at the very least, hold our ground against the world.

And what is that like? The constant battling, tugging and pulling against the world? A few words come to mind.

Exhausting.

Frustrating.

Dispiriting.

Fine. So we’re all fighting this exhausting battle against the world. Straining with all of our might to pull the rope our way.

The four-step solution

That brings us to the question at hand: What’s the solution?

I’m happy to tell you that there is one. And it’s simple:

Let go of the rope.

What?

Yes. Let go of the rope. Stop battling with the world. In fact…

Surrender.

As in quit? Give up on life?

Surrender isn’t quitting

Hell no. Surrendering is the opposite of giving up on life. In fact, it’s the most life-affirming act we can take.

But if we let go of the rope, what about that competition at work for the promotion? And trying to fit in with the moms at preschool? And managing our marriage? Those all take energy and work, don’t they?

Yes, they do. But not the kind of work and energy required of the tug of war strategy.

Then how do we handle these situations? Instead of tugging and straining, we work on relaxing into the moments of our lives. And we accept the reality of our situations, rather than resisting them.

Dealing with the weaselly sycophant

That annoying competitor of yours at work who’s constantly sucking up to the boss? He or she is who they are and you’re not going to change them.

What good does it do you to skulk around the office every day fantasizing about how you’d love to key their car? Answer: It not only does you no good, it does you loads of harm by flooding your psyche with negative energy.

What to do instead? Put 100 percent of your focus and energy at work on performing your work.

And your annoying mother-in-law? Again, accept her for who she is, know you’re not going to change her and do your best to remain present when you’re around her.

The ego wants us to tug

Finally, be cognizant of the fact that most of the time we’re tugging and straining against the world, it is our drama-loving, selfish, me-me-me, I-I-I ego that is directing us to do so. Letting go of the rope is akin to letting go of the ego’s hold over us.

So step #1 in our solution is to let go of the rope.

What’s step #2? Don’t pick up the rope again.

When life, and your ego, tries to lure you into picking up the rope and resuming the battle, don’t do it. Relax and let the rope sit on the ground.

But hey, we’ve all been fighting and tugging for many, many years, so odds are we’re going to pick up the rope again at some point. We’re not going to kick that habit in a day.

No, we’re not. So when we pick up the rope again…

Step #3 is to simply become aware that we’ve picked up the rope again.

“Oops, there I go again. Ruminating about how much I hate Gerald in the next cubicle.”

Which leads to step #4: Let go of the rope again.

And that’s it. Repeat steps 1–4. Over and over.

With time, the periods between picking up the rope will increase. Until one day you realize, “Wow, I can’t remember the last time I picked up the rope…”

The takeaway

Here’s a practical way to use this. The next time you find yourself tensed up, frustrated or pissed off about some battle you’re in, picture in your mind straining to pull the rope toward you.

And then…

In your mind’s eye…

Let go of the rope.

Take a few deep breaths. Relax. And respond to the situation from a state of presence.

You win.

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If I was back in my Hollywood screenwriting days and was writing this article as a movie, I’d title it: “Letting Go of the Ego 14: Resistance Kills.”

Why fourteen? Let’s face it, I’ve written a lot about letting go of the ego, something I have zero misgivings about. It’s foundational to our well-being.

We’ve all accumulated and stored all sorts of egoic gunk throughout our lives and unless we do the work of letting it go, it just sits there. Doing what? Running, and often ruining, our lives.

Meditation won’t get you there

I don’t care if you meditate five hours a day, unless you let go of that baggage (called Samskaras in Sanskrit), it’s not going anywhere. Scars from parents’ divorces, bad break-ups, pressure to “succeed” heaped on you by overbearing parents, siblings and friends…

It all has to go.

We’ve attacked the “how” to let go from several vantage points in previous articles. Today’s teaching is, like the others, simple and invaluable.

As is the case with so many of the teachings I have learned from the likes of Ram Dass, Michael Singer and Eckhart Tolle, the key to this one is awareness.

As Tolle eloquently put it:

“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”

I’ll keep using that quote until my fingers turn blue from typing it.

Awareness is essential

Why is awareness so central to spiritual growth? Because unless we’re aware that something we’re doing is harmful to us, we’ll never do anything to correct it.

Such is the case when our emotional/egoic baggage is poked. How so?

Let’s take a simple example. Your dysfunctional parents drilled into you from day one that you were not the sharpest tool in the shed.

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Today’s piece is going to be another in a long line devoted to illuminating something critically important, this time understanding our minds.

The whole point of articles like this is to clarify and heighten your understanding of something that is absolutely essential.

Featured today is Joseph Goldstein, someone I’ve been a huge fan of since the beginning of my spiritual journey.

Mindfulness pioneers

Goldstein is known as one of the main forces in bringing meditation, mindfulness and Buddhist teachings to America in the early 1970s, along with Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield and Jon Kabat-Zinn.

If you get a chance, search him up on YouTube and listen to any number of his talks. You won’t be disappointed.

Last week I listened to an interview he did with Dan Harris, the former ABC News correspondent turned meditation and mindfulness teacher. He’s the 10% Happier guy and has a fantastic Substack newsletter and app that I subscribe to.

The interview was a goldmine for a few Notes and also this article, which is centered on something Goldstein said to Harris:

“If you want to understand your mind, sit down and observe it.”

That’s what I call powerful simplicity. And if we dig in and don’t gloss right over it, there’s invaluable spiritual wisdom to be gleaned.

Let’s start with a question: Is there even one person reading this who could say with any certitude that they understand why their mind acts the way it does?

I can’t believe there’s one.

Our stallion minds

Why? Because our minds are incredibly complex and as wild as an untamed stallion. How so?

See if any of these sound familiar:

-You’re driving home from work after a tough day in which your boss embarrassed you in front of your colleagues. Your mind runs through endless scenarios of what you would say to him and do to him in a sort of fantasy world. As you pull into your driveway, you realize you can’t remember one moment of your thirty-minute drive home because you were so lost in mind chatter.

-You’re on a first date with an attractive, well-mannered guy. Throughout dinner your mind pinballs all over the place, thinking about what your kids would look like, whether he’s a good kisser, whether he’s the faithful or cheating type…all while holding a regular conversation.

-You’re listening to your four-year-old read a book at bedtime, but you’re not there. You’re in your mind thinking about what you have to get done tomorrow. Finally… “Dad? Did you hear me?” “No. What did you say?” “Do gorillas like dogs?” “Uhh…Yeah, sure.”

What these examples have in common is that we, our conscious selves, did not direct our minds to start thinking about our jerk boss, prospective children with a guy we just met or our schedule for the next day. Our minds just took over and snatched away our consciousness.

Our minds can run and ruin us

We all do this. All the time. And it’s not good. Out of control minds run, and often, ruin our lives.

I know most of you know this, but it’s worth repeating over and over and over again. Why? Because if you’re not keenly aware of the damage an easily distracted mind can inflict on your life, you are highly unlikely to do anything to ameliorate the situation.

And this isn’t some modern concept humankind has been grappling with just recently. The centrality of working with and calming the mind features prominently in the Bible, the Tao te Ching and The Bhagavad Gita, to name just three of the most influential spiritual texts ever produced.

We must work with our minds

So the central purpose of this piece is to figuratively throw cold water in your face to get you to pay attention to the importance of working with your mind. It is the core work of the spiritual path.

Fine. So we need to work with our minds.

How do we do that?

There are myriad ways, of course. Everything from talk therapy to mindfulness practices to praying and on and on.

But the foundation for all of it is found in Goldstein’s quote:

“If you want to understand your mind, sit down and observe it.”

Key to this is realizing that there are two entities involved here, the mind and the conscious, real you observing it.

You are not your mind

Most people on planet Earth identify as their mind, much to their detriment. In fact, one could make a cogent case that people believing they are their mind is the central malady afflicting all of humankind.

That understanding that we are not our mind is the basis of most Eastern spiritual traditions and is the core point of Eckhart Tolle’s seminal work The Power of Now.

Once we realize we are consciousness and not the mind, what do we do?

As Goldstein teaches, “…we sit down and observe it.”

We don’t try to dive in and shut it up. That doesn’t work.

Observing quiets the mind

We simply sit and observe the mind. The more we do that, the quieter the mind becomes and the better our lives get.

Getting down to the brass tacks of it all, how do we sit and observe our minds?

I’m sure you know where this is heading because sitting and observing our minds is one way of describing…

Meditation.

You still with me? Come on, it’s not that big of a deal to meditate.

All it is is sitting quietly and placing our attention on something occurring in the present moment, like our breathing. When we do that, we can’t be stuck in our minds.

Your mind will wander and that’s okay

Of course, our attention will wander from our breathing into mind thought. So we simply notice that we’ve wandered, then slowly place our attention back on our breathing.

How often will that happen in a five or ten minute meditation? Often. But, as the world-renowned meditation and mindfulness teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn says,

“If your mind wanders into thinking a thousand times, simply return your attention to your breathing a thousand times…”

I can’t recommend meditation highly enough. I’ve been doing it regularly for fifteen years and it has been a game-changer in my life.

Getting started on meditation

How to get started? This link will get you to my five-minute body scan meditation I used for the meditation classes I taught a few years ago. I find it to be the easiest, best meditation for those just starting out.

Give it a try. And see if you can develop a regular practice, which I define as meditating five times per week.

Nothing will help you better understand, and ultimately quiet, your mind.

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Happiness. It’s a loaded word. Call it contentment. Inner peace. Whatever we call it, let’s all agree that it is what all humans want in life.

The core problem most people have is they pursue paths that don’t lead to happiness. Society, our parents, our friends…they all send us in the wrong direction when it comes to being a happy, contented person.

A funny, wise story from the 13^th century Sufi mystic, Nasreddin, illuminates this beautifully. It goes like this:

One evening, Nasreddin was on a sidewalk looking through the grass and bushes under the light of a lamp post. A friend of his walked by and asked what Nasreddin was doing.

“I’m searching for my house keys,” said Nasreddin.

The friend offered to help, and the two continued searching under the light of the lamp post.

After a while of this, the friend asked,

“Where did you last have your keys?”

“Back at the house,” replied Nasreddin.

Exasperated, the friend shouted,

“Then why are we looking here?!”

Nasreddin plainly stated, “Because the light is better here.”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is us.

How?

Keys=Happiness

First, let’s break down what’s what here. The keys represent happiness. That’s what we’re looking for and having so much trouble finding.

The light shining from the lamp post is what most of us, misguidedly, pursue in life, thinking it will make us happy.

What kinds of things do we search for under the lamp light of life?

-Relationships that we think will cure the broken feeling we have inside.

-Careers that provide the power and wealth that will give us the notoriety and respect we desperately crave…because we’re broken inside.

-Pursuing the perfect body by working out two hours a day and eating 1,500 calories a day of tasteless protein and kale shakes.

-Working your tail off to go to the best college, then the best law school, then the top federal judge clerkship, then make partner at a blue-chip law firm…all because you think this will bring happiness.

Unfortunately, none of those things brings sustained happiness. They provide short-term Dopamine hits that always, always, always fade away.

So why do we get down on our knees and search futilely for our keys in the light, when we know full well that they aren’t there?

The ego fuels the light

Therein lies the rub, because most of us don’t know that we won’t find our keys in the light. And the reason we don’t know is that the ego is the entity that fuels the light.

It says to us, in effect,

“Hey! Look how bright it is over here. Come over here and look for your happiness. It’ll be great!”

The point is that the light is attractive. Alluring. Enticing.

And so is money. And power. And romantic love. And Harvard degrees. And perfectly shaped butts.

I hope you realize how crucial it is to be aware of this. It’s everything.

Where to focus your attention

Because once you’re aware that you’ve been searching for your keys under the lights and that you’ll never find them there, you can train your attention where it needs to be.

Which is…

On the house. The dark house, to be exact.

What does the house represent? Our inner world. Our insides.

The house is dark and scary

And why did I emphasize that the house is dark? Because examining our insides can be scary. Foreboding. Mysterious.

But like it or not, folks, our keys lie somewhere in that dark house so that’s where we need to search for them.

How do we do conduct that search? Fifty million pages have been written about that in some form or other. I’ll offer what my favorite spiritual teachers, Ram Dass, Michael Singer and Eckhart Tolle, have taught me.

First, look at your life and see what ways you’re searching in the light for your keys.

-Are you working ninety hours a week as an associate at a prestigious law firm and feeling miserable most of the time?

-Are you constantly searching for the “right” guy and having no luck?

-Are you always game for trying the latest fad diet, fad workout regimen or even fad spiritual trend?

What do we do once we identify these areas where we’re searching for our keys in the light? We open the front door to our dark house by asking ourselves a fundamental question:

“Why am I doing this?”

Not in an accusatory or denigrating way as in, “Come on, you idiot. You work all the time and you’re miserable. Why the hell are you doing this?!”

No. We ask the question non-judgmentally.

Then we do our best to relax and listen to what comes up, however painful it may be.

It’s about looking inside, not outside

If I were to sum it up it would be this: Instead of looking outside (in the light) to cure what ails us inside, we need to go inside (the house) to cure what ails us inside.

Maybe after posing his question in his dark house the lawyer hears,

“Mom and dad made it abundantly clear to me that they’d love me more if I became a successful lawyer like dad was rather than pursue acting which was what my gut told me.”

What we’re doing when we explore our dark houses is searching for our truth. We’re searching for why we do what we do and why we are the way we are.

I’ve found that talk therapy can be very useful in helping us navigate the scary and often confusing rooms of our inner house and I highly recommend it.

The takeaway

The purpose of this piece, which is massively important, is to make you aware that most of us search for happiness under the bright lights of the streetlamp.

You won’t find it there.

So consider walking out of the light and over to the dark house.

See if you can muster the strength and courage to open the door and walk in.

The keys to your happiness lie inside.

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I’ve written frequently about the importance of responding and not reacting during tense, confrontational situations.

It’s the difference between possibly resolving a dispute in a constructive manner that benefits you or dooming yourself to outcomes that cause you great harm. That harm can be as minor as an hour of giving the cold shoulder to your “opponent,” or as serious as ending up in divorce court.

Bottom line: It’s worth putting in the work to avoid those explosions.

But what is that work? What can we do to save ourselves from ourselves?

I try to approach these challenges from a practical, logical standpoint. Here’s what I’ve come up with on the explosion thing.

Those critical first seconds

First, so many of the fractious scenes we encounter come down to how we respond in those first few seconds after our inner lava has been stirred. Most of us don’t make it past those first moments. We explode.

I’ve gotten comments from many readers attesting to how difficult it is to make it past the ‘reaction’ phase to the ‘respond’ phase.

Fine. The key question then becomes: What can we do to strengthen our ability to get through those first few seconds without exploding?

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In all the years I’ve been writing about and studying the spiritual path, nothing has vexed me more than the idea behind attachment.

And it’s important. Why? Because attachment lies at the heart of our spiritual journey.

You know who thought so? The Buddha, one of the wisest beings to ever live, who said:

“The root of suffering is attachment.”

Sounds pretty significant to me.

The types of attachment

What is attachment? There are a few categories.

One would be attachment to things. Cars, a special coffee mug, Manolo Blahnik shoes, a painting hanging on your bedroom wall.

We become attached to ideas and positions. Democrat. Republican. Socialist. Stoic. Fiscal conservative but social progressive.

We attach ourselves to things being a certain way. I need a clean kitchen and bathroom before I go to bed. I need the exact right shade of white, out of the fifty that I’ve examined, to paint my kitchen.

Attachment to our kids

Then there’s the big Kahuna: People. We become attached to boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, friends and the Grand Poobah of them all: Our children.

I think of attachments as things, ideas and people that I hold on to. The Buddhists would call it clinging.

The modern teacher most associated with attachment is Ram Dass, one of my favorite human beings. His is one of two pictures sitting on my desk, the other being his guru, Neem Karoli Baba.

Ram Dass is the one who taught me the ins and outs of attachment in various writings and lectures of his. He’s also the source of the perplexity of it all. How so?

What he’s saying is, “Don’t be attached to your Lexus SUV. Don’t be attached to your job. Don’t be attached to your French Poodle…” and on and on.

The perplexity of attachment

My first response upon hearing this is, as I’m sure it is with many of you, “So you’re asking me to go through life not caring about anything? What’s the point of living?”

Therein lies that perplexing subtlety from the article title. Because what he’s saying is that, of course we should care about things in life. We just shouldn’t become attached to them.

As Ram Dass put it,

“Our journey is about being more deeply involved in life, and yet less attached to it.”

Which leads to the central question on the whole concept: What’s the difference between non-attached caring-being deeply involved in life and attachment?

My Masters mug bites the dust

Here’s a small example from my life that will shed light. I went to the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, Georgia, in 2015, and had a blast. My brother and I bought tons of shirts, hats, etc., that can only be bought at the tournament. It’s some of the most valuable swag in all of sports.

One of those items was a beautiful mug with the Masters logo on it. It was my go-to mug for six years, the one I put in the freezer and used for my post-workout seltzer water with lemon or for a beer at dinner time.

One day I retrieved the mug from the freezer, put it on the counter, then proceeded to get my seltzer and lemon, something I’d done hundreds of times before.

But this time, the icy part on the bottom of the mug caused it to slide off the counter and smash into a hundred pieces. Bye, bye Masters mug.

My previous self would have been anguished over this because I’d have developed a strong attachment to it. The more spiritual me?

“Dang, my Masters mug broke. We had a good six years, my friend. Sorry to see you go. Life goes on.”

And that’s it. It was gone and I didn’t look back. That’s not to say that I was happy it broke. Far from it. I really liked that mug. I just never allowed an attachment to develop with this inanimate object that caused me to need it.

I cared about the mug, but I wasn’t attached to it.

The tough one comes when Ram Dass talks about attachment to our kids. Are parents not supposed to worry if their kid is struggling? It seems impossible.

When asked about this once, Ram Dass said,

“Attachment is attachment.”

Whether it’s a beer mug or a precious child, attachment isn’t good for our well-being.

Ego is at the center of it

Why? The answer lies in what forms these attachments in the first place. It’s one word. Any guesses?

Ego.

Sorry for being a broken record on this but all roads lead back to ego as the central player in the human drama.

Fortunately, Ram Dass teaches us that there’s a way to use attachment for growth. He said,

“A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there’s work to be done.”

What work? Letting go.

If you spill red wine on your favorite pair of white jeans and go into despair over it, notice that. Then relax, breathe and do your best to let go of that attachment.

If your son fails his math final (mine is studying in the kitchen right now for his!), relax and let go.

And know this: A parent is of far greater value to their kid when in a state of relaxed non-attachment than when they’re freaking out and only adding kindling to the fire.

Put another way: True love springs from a place of peaceful non-attachment, not from fear-based attachments.

The takeaway

It takes a lot of work to get to that state of peaceful non-attachment. But there is no more valuable work we can do.

As the Buddha said:

“The person who clings to nothing of the past, present and future, who has no attachment and holds on to nothing — that person, I call a Holy Person.”

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Let me state up front that I am not a high being. Far from it.

High beings are those like Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi and Neem Karoli Baba, people who shed their egos and became close to pure consciousness.

Me? I still fly off the handle when my teenage daughter makes my nine-year-old daughter cry. I have a ways to go…

The question I’d ask

But if I were you, someone interested in articles I write about traveling the spiritual path, I’d want to ask this question of me: Of all these things you write about, which work best for you?

The answer is that many work for me. But…

There is one that I find helps me the most. And it is this:

Accepting and not resisting what comes my way.

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Here’s how I look at studying the macro matters of the metaphysical.

Imagine a circle. At its center is another, smaller circle.

The circle of truth

That small circle is the absolute truth of the human condition. And from several points on the bigger circle, we can draw a line to the smaller circle of truth.

What those…

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I know I sound like a broken record on this ‘letting go’ thing. And I don’t apologize for it. Because letting go is the central activity required for liberation.

Put another way. When my wife and any of her friends ask me for advice about tennis – I’ve played since I was eight and was a four-year varsity letterman at Princeton – I tell them, again and again, that job number one is to be loose. Be fluid. That is central to playing good tennis.

The point is that the fundamentals of any endeavor – writing, piano, golf – need to be stressed, over and over and over, in furtherance of mastering said endeavor.

Letting go leads to liberation

Well, no endeavor is more important and yields more benefit than liberating ourselves from ourselves. And, as Michael Singer teaches, the root of liberation lies in letting go.

Why is that so? You’ve heard it before, but here it is again.

Starting in our youngest years, we had experiences that we either really liked, so we clung to them and want them to repeat, or, much more common, really didn’t like, so we resisted them, thinking that would protect us. In both of those scenarios, we held onto those experiences.

That holding on manifests inside as energy. Stuck energy, unfortunately. Because that stuck energy, which collectively comprises the ego, runs and ruins our lives. How?

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The impetus for writing this came the other day in a two-hour conversation with my great friend and spiritual confidant Nick Winger, a close approximation of his name (and no, it wasn’t Mickey Singer).

We went deep, covering everything from what consciousness is, what the Universe wants to achieve through we mortal beings…

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This article will be particularly impactful for any of you who place yourselves on the sensitive end of the sensitivity spectrum. I imagine that’s a goodly sum of you as we peeps interested in the spiritual tend to be on the sensitive side.

The story starts years ago when I heard my favorite spiritual teacher, Michael Singer, say something in one of his talks that made my ears prick up. In subsequent talks over the years, Singer said it again. And again. And again.

So why am I just getting around to writing about this now rather than years ago? I should have. Mea culpa.

Well, better late than never, so let’s giddy up to the meat of the matter.

I’ll start by asking: Do you ‘take things personally’ on a regular basis? What do I mean by ‘take things personally’? I think you know but here are a couple of examples to illustrate.

-You’re talking with an acquaintance at a cocktail party when they abruptly bolt from you to talk with someone “more important.” You take it personally.

-Your spouse says you’ve been slacking off on the household upkeep. You take it personally.

-Your surly teenage daughter says the jeans you’re wearing look terrible on you. You take it personally.

Taking these perceived slights personally manifests in different ways for different people but usually includes some kind of physical jolt or pang inside. I feel that jolt in my stomach.

That brings us to the teaching du jour, Singer’s two-word gem of wisdom:

“Nothing’s personal.”

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For most of us, life is a series of ebbing and flowing moods. We’re in a good mood then something happens that puts us in a bad mood or vice-versa.

The point of this piece is to get people to take a fresh look at those cycles and then work on minimizing the bad moods. First, let’s take a look at what causes our bad moods.

Ob…

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This piece isn’t about guiding your kid through the college admission insanity we’ve all heard about. Enough has been written about that.

What it’s about is three basic life lessons I’ve tried to teach my son, starting roughly two years ago when all the college mania started. Those lessons can help any of you at any stage of life, which is the only reason I’m writing this.

Before getting to those lessons, I need to describe the frenzied college admission process that has infected America’s teens and their parents the past few decades.

What does that look like?

-Kids having anxiety attacks before and during taking the SAT or ACT tests.

-Kids fretting that if they don’t get into their college of choice, or at least a “good” college (whatever that means), their life will be one slow roll to homelessness.

-Parents fretting that if their teen doesn’t get into their college of choice, or at least a “good” college, their kid’s life will be one slow roll to homelessness.

-Parents spinning up other parents about everything from which schools junior is applying to, to which schools junior got into to what junior’s GPA is and what his tests scores are and...yada, yada, yada, in the inestimable words of Jerry Seinfeld.

Pardon my French, but it is, and has been for many years now, an unmitigated shit show. As the youngest of six, I witnessed it time after time with my eleven nieces and nephews, all several years older than my kids.

I promised myself that I’d at least try to make my kids’ experience a healthier one. And now that my oldest child’s admissions journey is over, he committed to the University of Washington last week, I think I succeeded. Here’s how.

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First, an apology. I’ve written over 500 articles on all manner of spiritual topics but have yet to tackle arguably the most important concept of all.

What is this super-important concept? It can be described in one word, which I’ll get to.

Before doing so, we need to summarize the path to liberation, as taught by my f…

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Artists come in all shapes and sizes. They paint, sculpt, etch, draw, write, dance, act, sing, play the guitar and so on.

According to Eckhart Tolle, the ones that create sublime work have something in common. He puts it like this:

“All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.”

My 17 years as a Hollywood screenwriter confirmed Eckhart’s assertion. The best stuff I wrote came when I quieted down and just listened.

Writing dialogue in Hollywood

This was especially true when writing dialogue. I wouldn’t think to myself, “Okay, now what would she say?” I’d just sit in my chair, close my eyes, envision the character and then wait to hear what they said.

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Two weeks ago I wrote about why judging others is all bad, no good.

Today, I’m writing about judging’s first cousin: Comparing.

Now I know only a few reading this can relate to comparing yourselves to others and that the vast majority of you have never done so, but please bear with me…

THAT WAS A JOKE!

We all compare

Of the eight billion human beings on Eart…

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Letting go is the be-all, end-all of spiritual growth. For those of you counting, that’s the 3,478^th time I’ve written that. I hope you’ll agree that something so important bears repeating…a lot.

What I mean by letting go is releasing all of the emotional baggage we’ve accumulated and held onto over the course of our lives.

Why is that so consequential? Because if we don’t let it go, that baggage just sits there and runs, and ruins, our lives. Not even thousands of hours of meditation will change that.

You might be wondering why ‘letting go’ doesn’t appear in the title. That this article is supposed to be about dealing with becoming upset.

Answer: By definition, if something is upsetting you, it’s poking your baggage…and that baggage needs to be tossed out of the airplane, AKA let go.

That being the case, I’m always on the lookout for eloquent, impactful descriptions of this letting go process. My favorite might be one I recently heard Michael Singer talk about.

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