Podcasts – Infinite Smile

Recognizing that all things are truly impermanent can be terrifying. So much of our time in life is devoted to keeping this fundamental reality from creeping into our awareness that we often miss the behaviors that lead us away from the very awakening we claim to want. Once we actually shut up, sit still and actually stop, we find that all sorts of opportunities open up to us. Among the most important realizations is that in our deepest awareness we see that there is no place to hide. Seeing through our habitual patterning renders them impotent and obsolete in the face of what’s really going on. As scary as this can be initially, our practice shows us that it’s also freeing in that we are afforded an opportunity to meet our lives in utterly different ways. After the initial shock of reevaluation and adjustment, this new path of ever-deepening consciousness is usually recognized as an invitation that directs us home. Should we choose to accept the invitation, we are welcomed back into the heart  of what we’ve always known to be true. With this in mind we can begin to meet each and every experience that arises as an opportunity to awaken. Even in the midst of great emotional or physical pain, we see that we are being invited to go deeper. We see that at the center of all darkness an eternal light burns for us, calling us back to our original home. This light is expressed eternally through us, but it’s not usually noticed let alone consciously integrated in our experience. Meditation, good teaching and good teachers support this profound gift and help it to be realized. Our stillness supports a recognition that we are constantly being asked to return homeward to a heart and mind that are infinite in dimension and scope. Following this path with full commitment helps us and those around us to see that this invitation home is an invitation for each of us to step consciously into an eternal grace. ___ Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.   Tweet

Our work, as practitioners, ultimately centers itself around our ability to shift our perspective from what is contracted to that which is utterly expansive. Once we see this new, more comprehensive view, our work evolves toward integrating this new vision with our old perspective. This dance back and forth becomes a way of living that incorporates a commitment to benefitting all beings. Sitting still regularly supports this realization. As it’s incorporated, it naturally, and spontaneously, begins to loosen whatever it is that might be binding us. This opening allows for us to hold both the manifest with the Unmanifest all at once as we live in the world. From here we can then, all at once, begin to support a conscious coexistence of separation and unity; conventional reality and Ultimate reality; the ego and what’s forever beyond the ego; what’s playing on the stage of mind with what’s in the audience; the many and the one. Michael describes how this process takes on certain characteristics over time, offering us a simple map of experience and development. We begin with a sense of pleasure, which offers us refuge from what threatens our egos. Over time, this gives way to an eventual resistance to what is going on. The ego sees that meditation actually prevents us from hiding and therefore, at the most primal level, we see that there’s no hiding. If we can stick with our practice at this point, we have the opportunity to open to what is without flinching. This stage of openness supports realization and a deep peace. Finally, integrating this peace, this Big Self awareness, into the habitual moves of our small self allows for us to become an embodied blessing that can truly serve all things. ___ Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.   Tweet

Once we come to terms with the fact that nothing lasts, even the idea of clinging begins to lose its gravitational pull. Cultivating this opening has been taught in several traditions, with Eihei Dogen’s, “Eight Awakenings of Great Beings,” offering Zen students an excellent guide for achieving this goal. Looking closely at the Eight Awakenings, we see how this process shows us how our desires don’t need to overtake us. We also start to see that we can recognize how much is enough in any situation. We also begin to recognize and appreciate serenity and solitude. Seeing the importance of diligence as we cultivate depth also works in our favor. Mindfulness becomes a key in process as does the practice of meditation. The nourishment of wisdom as we live and refraining from engaging in hollow discussions round out Dogen’s recommendations for how to live the very Freedom we most seek. Living as a conscious integration of these steps allows for us to embody peace and an awakened perspective. ___ Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.   Tweet

Rumi says, “When the water gets caught in habitual whirlpools, dig a way out through the bottom to the ocean.” How many habitual behaviors and thought patterns diminish our experience? Looking carefully at the answer to this question helps us uncover what blocks our awakening. Really digging our way out, however, begins to show rewards as our meditation practice becomes a deeper reflection of our commitment to living an undivided life. And this undivided life involves, as much as anything, making friends with our demons as well as our hidden gifts. As we make friends with the shadow elements of our internal landscape, we have the opportunity to integrate them into a more whole, a more complete self. Here we begin to consciously meet up with our source, which allows for us to not only begin to sense what is sacred within us but also what is sacred in others. We also begin to see that instead of acting to fill what we perceive as a hole in our hearts by looking outward, we begin to fearlessly look more deeply inward and recognize that we are actually whole. From here we practice looking at all parts of our being, especially the stuff we hate about ourselves, without judgement. The same thing can happen with the parts of ourselves that we wish we had at our disposal. For instance, we project both ugliness and greatness on others when in fact we couldn’t do this unless we can see these projections unconsciously coming from the deep wells within our own beings. When we stop pushing aside the shadow and the light we are afforded an amazing opportunity to bloom, like a lotus, continually. ___ Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes. Tweet

For the ego, misery is a far better choice than the Mystery, especially when it comes to relationships. Centering our entire being in the heart of our experience as a Witnessing awareness helps change this orientation and has the potential to end the cycle of our suffering. How’s it done? The minute our lives are no longer bound by grasping, we can consciously and spontaneously become radiant expressions of the Infinite. In our bodies this feels like peace and ease. Integrating this peace into this moment in time helps us rewrite the stories of our past and also sets us up for glorious future opportunities. Seeing through the distortions that come from our clinging to our past take us from blame into forgiveness. Seeing through the distortions that come from our clinging to future goals takes us from closure into openness. Merging both forgiveness and openness allows for us to live in awakened ways, thus supporting a conscious and continuous apprehension of the very mystery we’ve always avoided. Bringing this kind of presence into our love lives shows us how to be in relationship without grasping which invariably yields an awakening to a deeper kind of love. ___ Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes. Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk. Tweet

As spiritual practitioners we can often misplace our awareness, focussing too heavily on one or another aspect of being. We may overcompensate both intention and awareness in subtle ways, giving too much of our attention, for example, to our thinking or we can go the other way, giving too much attention to what we are feeling. But by balancing these two directional aspects of our awareness we naturally embody the very awakening that we hope to realize. Depending on your preferred translation, the Buddha says, “In this fathom-long body and mind you’ll find the entirety of the Dharma.” Assuming that the Buddha was on to something, this is great news. We have all we need, right here, right now, in this body and mind, for awakening. But in order to uncover this gift, very often we need to give a little extra attention to what’s going on within our bodies as opposed to getting habitually lost within our minds. Meditators often fall into this trap of studying their minds without dropping more deeply into their bodies. But by practicing a simple “checking in” with our feelings and evaluating their various textures, their density and their heat, among other qualities, helps us refine our sense of our internal landscape. Doing this helps not only familiarize us with our inherent majesty, but it helps us reclaim our bodies in powerful, and often beautiful ways, that we then get to share with the world. ___ Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes. Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk. Tweet

In this evenings talk, Michael walks us through how we can allow for peace and freedom to burst through us. This powerful and natural shine permeates and has the opportunity to be shared among all of us as soon as we stop avoiding our lives and begin a disciplined meditation practice. Once we do we become a conscious expression of something beautiful and magnetic. We start seeing darkness as a beautiful offering for each of us to go deeper and fearlessly meet our lives. This offers us a chance to truly live well. Our invitation is to explore our seeking and, in the process, begin finding peace. Uncovering the peace we all have at our core releases us from our craving, our addictions, and our compulsions, by helping us to see through them. “It’s not,” as Michael says, “that the craving no longer exists, but our relationship to it changes so radically through committed practice that it’s no longer an affliction. Rather it’s seen as something that arises and ceases, like everything else.” This realization offers a place of love and light where we come home to Oneness and we set ourselves up for the Divine Disaster of awakening. ___ Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes. Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk. Tweet

Whatever keeps us off of the cushion is what keeps us from awakening. At least this is one of Michael’s most common refrains as he encourages a daily stillness practice. Why? “Because,” as he says, “it loosens whatever is keeping us bound.” Once this loosening takes on the characteristics of a deeper unraveling, our bondage becomes a choice rather than an addiction. This evening’s Dharma talk takes this subject on in a couple of capacities. First, it approaches the ways that the ego can attempt to control the process of awakening. Second, it refers to a recent blog posting where Michael explores the types of relationships we cultivate both within ourselves and with other people. From these two perspectives we learn how to get out of the way of the inherently natural process of an evolutionary awakening. ___ Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes. Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk. Tweet

Here are two of the four talks offered at our most recent Spring Retreat at the Mount Madonna Center entitled, Living From Abundance. Please come join us some time.

What would it be like to be able to welcome any challenge as an invitation into awakening? Our relationship to our troubles determines the answer to this question. Are we avoiding anything? Are we at war? Harboring ill-will? Acting from desperation? Hungry for something, anything, other than what’s actually happening? Are you going for pleasure instead of going for consciousness? Trying to find where pleasure and consciousness can coexist? The answers to these and other questions often arise out of the heroic exploration of what makes each of us tick. Uncovering what, for example we most identify with offers keys to what is sacred within each of us. For example, if we assume that the sum of our past experiences creates our identity, we are bound by our own sense of deficiency? Or what happens when the dreams and future goals we’ve set for ourselves and those around us fail to meet our expectations? Here, again, we pin ourselves to a deeply held internal sense that we are inadequate. Depression can ensue and the choices we make based on our darkness usually only serve to deepen our pain. But according to the teaching there is way to uncover our light within the experience of darkness. Once we become intimate with our deepest longings, we see that there is a miraculous freedom that arises as the bonds of desperation start to break apart. Meditative work done consistently and intentionally shows each of us that our desires no longer have to govern our behaviors, our anger no longer has to weaken us, our avoidance patterns no longer need to rule us, nor does our tendency to doubt have to govern our choices, we can live in more expansive ways. This is the work. This is our path to peace. ___ Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes. Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk. Tweet

In this evening’s Dharma talk, Michael addresses how beauty, and our sense of it, can be impediments to awakening. “It’s not,” he says, “that there is anything wrong with beauty. In fact, beauty is everywhere, all the time. The problem is that by labeling something as ‘beautiful’ we limit the potential expanse of its power with our definition. We miss the mark, or ‘sin,’ as we attempt to stabilize an experience of awe that feels so intense.” Michael goes on to discuss the natural expression of letting go as activity that does no harm. Ahimsa, as Buddhists call it, begins to guide the ways we meet our experience, he says, as we begin to evolve into deeper expressions of awakening. He also goes on to explain how the egoic clinging to thoughts, feelings and time can prevent this evolution. Additionally, he maps out the way the mind moves from its primary 5 senses into the 6th sense of mind; following this up with the 7th sense of time, the 8th sense of the hidden observer, then bridging into the 9th sense of the hidden observer’s source. ___ Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes. Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk. Tweet

In this Dharma talk, Michael addresses how the ego is more comfortable with its own misery than it is uncovering the mystery of existence. This presents some problems for most of us since we rarely have either the courage or the guidance to move past this kind of psychological or spiritual block. Failing to move past this block offers us no lasting solace. Working through this tendency, however, helps offer clarity of who and what we are as well as a deepening sense of purpose. The one thing, as Michael says, that the ego truly can’t handle is complete and utter peace. Uncovering a peace that is total would mean that the ego would be out of a job. So in order to maintain its job security, it creates war in various forms. Once we see through this, we recognize that there is an infinite opportunity to take advantage of an infinite array of choices. Choosing well by choosing consciously builds a sense in each of us that there is wholeness present in each of the situations that we face. Not only is peace at hand as this occurs, but peace is revealed to be the source of everything as well as the endpoint of everything. ___ Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes. Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk. Tweet

This podcast was originally offered in February of 2006. ___ In tonight’s talk, Michael discusses how our practice can be light, medium or deep. Deep practice takes us to the ragged edge of our personal limitations and in the process show us the view of the Impersonal. Questions and comments deal with consciously letting the Dharma get us wet; dealing with this practice as well as a partner who doesn’t practice; and patience that comes with deep practice. Tweet

In this video podcast of Michael’s most recent talk, Michael discusses how even in darkness, light can guide us. Perhaps the greatest desire for any of us, he suggests, is to be free of pain. But what happens in relationship to practice when we feel heavy with pain. It may be physical or emotional. And yet whatever disaster we might be experiencing helps to sharpen the very sword that cuts through our delusion. Engaging our lives at this level allows for us to deeply integrate our minds, our bodies, and our hearts. There is wholeness and freedom in this divine integration, and this helps inspire an authentic power in each of us where we no longer feel divided or separate. This non-division, then, supports a fullness of experience, where each of us can meet our lives with the perfect combination of fearlessness and compassion for all beings. ___ Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes. Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael’s talk. Tweet