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Your original face

There is a famous Zen koan that asks, “What is your original face, the face you had before you were born?”

Whenever I have heard this koan, my first response is, “I have no idea how to answer that.” And of course, that is the purpose of a Zen koan, to confound the thinking mind and in so doing, wake us up to a deeper form of knowing.

One thing I have noticed is that the more I am able to sit in that not knowing state, to rest in a sense of “just being”, the more I can relax and feel what, if anything, is needed next. It is not a conceptual process; it is more like a listening. And from that listening, originality emerges (“original” meaning “from the origin” or “from the source”).

Waking up is not about copying anyone or anything. It can’t be. Because as soon as we are mimicking something, we are recycling someone else’s experience. We are one step removed from the source; we are no longer rooted in our own moment-to-moment revelatory experience.

My basic point here is that the more we discover our own Original Face, the face we had before we were born, the more confident we become in expressing ourselves in unique ways. In a sense, great spiritual teachers feel to me like great “artists of the spirit.” And like an inspired musician, poet, or painter, a spiritual artist knows that he or she must spend time in the space of not knowing and then trust the melodies, visions, words, and guidance that come through.

Sometimes people say to me that they are afraid of spiritual awakening because they are afraid of being erased, afraid that they will turn into a paste of nothingness. What I have found is that the more we drop the sense of being separate and disconnected, the more we tune to the underlying, unifying “hum” of being, the more we become plugged in to a current that begins to animate our life. And sometimes, the life force expresses through us in pretty outrageous ways. We take chances. We speak from our heart. We become a mystery to ourselves and a creative force in the world.

To take this even further, what if the more we discover our Original Face, the more our one-and-only physical face starts to express the love and beauty of the cosmos in unusual and distinctive ways? Abraham Lincoln is attributed with saying “Every man over 40 is responsible for his face.” I take this to mean that each one of us has a responsibility for the love and kindness and warmth and openness that our face communicates. What if the quality in our eyes, the shape of our mouth, the openness of our forehead, and even the character of our nose, is a direct expression of our capacity to know and rest in being?

At Sounds True, we often refer to the Wake Up Festival as a celebration of the “many faces of awakening.” And I love that phrase. I look forward to seeing each and every person’s one and only original face this August in the Rocky Mountains.

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If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is ...

If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is “thank you,” that would suffice. -Meister Eckhart

We are quite sure that tomorrow will come, that the most sacred in-breath and out-breath will be there, that grace will take shape as the sun falling into the ocean, that the love that animates this body will continue to take form in such a rare way. But some part of us knows that it is really so fragile here, so precarious, so extraordinary, that this life is not what we think, and that it will be returned to love very soon. It is too much, though, to let this in all the way, as we know that do so would change everything.

We really are on borrowed time, a loan of grace directly from the cells of the heart of the beloved. Yet we know that she will be asking for this unbearably precious gift to be returned soon, so that she may recycle the uniqueness that you are and swirl it out through this and all universes. She will paint the stars in the sky with the essence of what you are, with the signature of your unique soul, and with each and every light strand of your DNA. She will take every word of sweetness that you have ever uttered, every act of kindness you have ever performed, every moment of humility and longing in your heart, and use it to touch sentient life everywhere. And what you are will then pour through every shooting star that will ever fall through the sky again, into eternity; the dust of the stars and the dust of your heart weaved back into one substance.

So let us take just a moment and say thank you, and to get real clear about what it is we are ready to give, what is really and truly most important, and what is falling away.

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Let Us Make Sanctuary

Bayo Akomolafe, PhD, was born in Nigeria and steeped in Yoruba teachings as well as Western academia. Trained in clinical psychology, he refers to himself as a “renegade academic” and is globally recognized for his poetic, unconventional, and soul-stirring views on our current global crisis and the opportunities we now have for social change. 

In this podcast, Sounds True founder Tami Simon speaks with Dr. Akomolafe about how sanctuary is where slowing down and healing happens. They discuss: how the function of slowing down in urgent times is not about simply resting so that we can continue forward in the same direction, but about how to engage in deep inquiry about where we are going; pouring drink to earth—an African spiritual technology that expresses our indebtedness to our ancestors and all that makes life possible; standing at the crossroads—how the ground underneath us is going through a seismic shift that is allowing the unsaid to now be spoken and intelligible; the invitation of the slave ship as a place of spiritual contemplation and as a site of renewing our connections with grief, loss, trauma, and tragedy; grieving as a form of activism; and more.

Ruth King: Mindful of Race

Ruth King is an Insight Meditation teacher, life coach, diversity consultant, and the author of Healing Rage: Women Making Inner Peace Possible. She is publishing her new book, Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out, in collaboration with Sounds True. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon speaks with Ruth about the personal experiences that led to writing Mindful of Race and why the heart can be “a mass weapon of healing.” They talk about the different ways we can interpret current racial narratives and why it takes honest self-examination to discover how one has benefited from a racist system. Ruth explains how mindfulness can open us up to having difficult conversations around racism, colonialism, and other forms of systemic oppression. Finally, Tami and Ruth discuss how “life is not personal, permanent, or perfect” and the necessity of cultivating compassion in all walks of life. (74 minutes)

Bruce Tift: Already Free

Bruce Tift has been in private practice as a psychotherapist in Boulder, Colorado since 1979. He taught at Naropa University for 24 years and was a student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. With Sounds True, he has published the book Already Free: Buddhism Meets Psychotherapy on the Path of Liberation. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Bruce and Tami Simon compare and contrast two different approaches to personal transformation: the “developmental” approach of psychotherapy and the “fruitional” approach of Buddhist practice. They discuss the blind spots inherent in each approach, as well as the ways they can be addressed. Tami and Bruce talk about the nature of neurosis and how neurotic tendencies almost always involve a sense of disembodiment. Finally, they speak on “unconditional practices,” and how unconditional kindness can transform one’s outlook on the procession of life. (70 minutes)

Coleman Barks: Rumi, Grace, and Human Friendship

Tami Simon speaks with Coleman Barks, a leading scholar and translator of the 13th-century Persian mystic Jelaluddin Rumi. Coleman’s work was the subject of an hour-long segment in Bill Moyers’s The Language of Life series on PBS. He has published numerous Rumi translations, including with Sounds True the audio programs I Want Burning: The Ecstatic World of Rumi, Hafiz, and Lalla; Rumi: Voice of Longing; and his three-part collaboration with cellist David Darling called Just Being Here: Rumi and Human Friendship. In this episode, Tami speaks with Coleman about the extraordinary friendship between Rumi and his teacher Shams Tabrizi, and how translating Rumi requires entering a trance state. Coleman offers insights on grace as he and Tami listen to selections from Just Being Here

 

Click  here to listen to  Holiday Without Limits by Coleman Barks

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