Living Outside of the Box

My mentor Horace had the ability to see an individual’s past, present and future. He began to speak to me one morning after a peyote meeting on the Ute Indian Reservation in Southern Colorado. Horace said that I would be returning to my own people. Hearing those words left me feeling really sick inside. I felt very at home within the traditional American Indian culture and I probably would have been content to live among the native people for the rest of my life, but I realized that everything around me was changing so rapidly. Alcoholism, violence and other forms of dysfunction had become so prevalent among the younger generations. I watched with absolute dismay as many of my peers destroyed themselves with alcohol and other substances. The people and the parts of native culture that I loved the most were dying out and I realized that it was time for me to go.

There are things that I really enjoy about our modern way of life, but in many ways I feel more at home among indigenous groups and people of other ancient cultures. American Indians felt more like a part of the Earth and the people who were connected to the traditional culture had a very primal quality about them. I felt a sense of culture shock upon my return to mainstream American society. I needed time to reassemble myself after my apprenticeship so I reenrolled in college and spent the next few years working to complete a degree.

All of the ancient cultures had developed their own traditional systems of medicine. American Indians did not have access to all the modern medical interventions that people depend upon today. They relied upon the forces of nature to facilitate healing within the body and mind that would not otherwise be possible. Native doctors often went through intensive practices such as the vision quest. Many of these individuals developed extraordinary gifts and healing powers.

Horace had gone through the vision quest many times over the course of his life. Horace was extremely powerful and he was able to assist people with a wide range of health related issues. Horace served as a traditional doctor among his own native community. People recognized Horace’s power and word spread throughout the native communities. Horace was one of the most well known traditional doctors in his day and native people from all over the Southwestern and Midwestern United States sought Horace’s assistance.

I had assisted my mentor Horace on many occasions as he worked with his own people and then I gradually began to work on my own. Some of the native people that I worked with were taken aback by the fact that I was a nonnative. But they were truly astonished when they felt the presence of other forces working through me to facilitate healing within their bodies and minds.

Things have changed so drastically within American Indian culture, but there are still a number of people who are involved in the traditional healing practices. American Indians show respect to their native doctors. They hold tremendous reverence for the presence of the higher power that works through these doctors to facilitate healing. American Indians also prepare an offering whenever they seek the assistance of their native doctors. A contractual agreement is made whenever a native doctor agrees to work with an individual and both parties regard the process as a sacred commitment. The traditional doctors tell a person the number of times they needed to work together. They also advise their patients on various other steps that are necessary to facilitate healing. Native people listen to their doctors and they followed through with their doctor’s advice and this is why they get such powerful results.

I assumed that I would be working within the same context as Horace and I tried to follow Horace’s example but I quickly realized that people in our mainstream American culture were not responding the way that native people did. Most of the people that I encountered had very little comprehension of the kinds of healing practices that native people have worked with for centuries. They also had no prior experience with the kinds of forces that native people relied upon in their everyday lives. I had to adapt to my new surroundings and find a way to make things work.

In many ways it’s far more stressful for me to work in mainstream America. The greatest challenge that I face is people’s resistance to experiencing their own feelings, facing their issues and being present within their own bodies. There’s a very strong tendency for people in our culture to disconnect from their feelings and this process usually begins at a very early age. People who shut down emotionally can become so divorced for their own true nature and because of that they possess so little understanding of their own bodies and minds. Emotions and other stresses continually accumulate within the body when they are not being processed and then a person’s body starts to turn into a toxic waste dump.

The presence working through me strips away the façade as it brings many people into their bodies and connects them with their true feelings for the first time in their lives. But the experience of being this present is so foreign for a lot of people. In many instances people have done one or a few sessions and then they run as soon as all the issues and emotions make their way to the surface. It takes so much more effort for me to educate people here in America. I’ve had to offer lots of classes and workshops and have also done a number of radio and television interviews. I often feel like I have to be an entertainer and at times, it seems as if I’m going through people like Kleenex. Fortunately there are a certain percentage of people who are honest enough to face themselves and their issues, experience their feelings and to do whatever else is required to heal.

I began to work with Nadine a few months ago. Nadine started to tell me that felt like she was play acting for so much of her life. "…I learned all the proper responses that helped me to get along in society. But those responses were superimposed upon an empty shell."

"The work that we are doing is changing me on a visceral level. I can feel the values, ways of thinking and doing things that I had picked up from my family and society. These things had become so much a part of my identity and I now recognize that those things are not me. It’s just something I had internalized. I never realized in the past that I had a core self, but now I can feel my true essence emerging. I don’t need to wear a mask anymore because the way I feel, respond and move through the world is becoming more of an expression of my true essence."

The work that I do with people will bring all of the feelings, memories and other stresses that have accumulated within the body up to the surface. This is a normal process of purification that takes place as we heal. We’ve held these things within our bodies for so long and it can sometimes feel very unsettling as they begin to emerge. These feelings need to be brought to the surface or they will remain trapped within our bodies indefinitely. Many people do not understand that this is an essential part of the healing process and it is exactly what needs to happen. The most uncomfortable or painful feelings and issues will soften and become more diffuse as we just allow ourselves to be fully present by breathing into them.

Our feelings and sensations feel very foreign when we have disconnected from them for so much of our lives. Feelings and sensations are not always pleasant, but they provide us with an opportunity to evolve when we learn how to work constructively with them. The wounded parts of ourselves can begin to heal as we learn to breathe into the feelings and sensations that we experience within our bodies. Feelings, emotions and bodily sensations become more comfortable as we continue to work with them. We will then find a place of refuge within our inner state or being.

Horace had transmitted portions of his own healing power to me. These powers began to take root within me as I started to work with people in my mid-twenties and I began to go through a process of purification. Many of the unresolved issues and emotions that had carried over from my own childhood began to surface as this power began to work through me. I also found that I was attracting women who reenacted the abuses and traumas that I had gone through during my own childhood and adolescence.

A few healers passed through town on occasion and so I scheduled individual sessions with them whenever the opportunity presented itself. The traditional native doctors among the various tribes had gone alone into the mountains to fast for the four days without food or water and I realized that this is something that I needed to be doing.

I held so many painful feelings and issues on the inside and that made it very difficult for me to function. But I could feel other forces or beings working to help me digest years of old traumatic memories and emotions while I was on the mountain. The painful feelings of depression and anxiety were gradually replaced with a sense of aliveness and I began to feel connected to the force of creation. I developed a lot of additional resources that made it possible for me to do all kinds of things that I had never really done before. I just assumed that things would keep improving for as long as I continued to go to the mountain and that’s why I have returned so many times.

American Indians and other indigenous groups of people allow other forces or beings to work through them to facilitate healing within the body and mind. The same forces that work within my own body and mind while I’m on the mountain facilitate the healing process as I work with others people. Being a conduit for these forces deepens my own connection to something far greater than myself.

It’s so easy to become entrenched in our own limiting perceptions and ways of doing things. Spending time in various parts of the world and living among people from so many diverse cultural backgrounds has shown me that there are so many different ways of thinking, feeling and doing things. That causes me to examine the way that I live my own life and it also helps me to broaden my own perspectives. I began to see that the world that most of us are familiar with is only a very narrow sliver of the range of what is humanly possible.

I had a very strong feeling in July of 2002 that I needed to go to Sri Lanka. The only Sri Lankans I had ever met prior to my first visit were ethnic Tamils who had fled the country to escape from persecution. I didn’t really know anything about the culture or about what was happening in Sri Lanka. But I decided to listen to my intuition anyway and so I used the miles that I had accrued to book a flight to Sri Lanka.

My flight arrived at the Bandarananaike International Airport just before midnight. I felt totally exhausted by the time I arrived and my first thought was to find a place to rest for the night. Sri Lanka looked unlike anything that I had ever seen before. The roads into the capital were dimly lit and we passed through a number of military checkpoints that were manned by heavily armed soldiers. I had a sinking feeling as we rode towards Colombo and I thought to myself "…What the *#@% am I doing here?"

Every country or culture that I’ve spent time in is a reality unto itself. Much of Sri Lanka is very impoverished and that is largely a result of the war between the government forces and the Tamil Tigers. Sri Lanka was ruled by the British from 1815 to 1948. The British, who operated with a policy of divide and conquer, favored members of the ethnic Tamil minority. Tamils and Sinhalese had lived side by side in relative harmony for hundreds of years. Members of the Sinhalese majority dominated the government once Sri Lanka gained independence from England. Sinhalese politicians enacted a system of apartheid against their own ethnic Tamil minority after they came to power.

What most people do not understand is that thousands of Tamils were beaten and killed during the Black July anti-Tamil riots of 1983. Tamil homes and business were also burned to the ground. The Sinhalese dominated government stood by and did nothing to stop the carnage. Thousands of Tamils fled the country and many were given refugee status in England, the United States and Switzerland.

I’ve gotten to know lots of Sinhalese and Tamils and there are many wonderful people among both groups. It’s unfortunate that the unbelievable stupidity and greed of those who came to power within the government could instigate so much ethnic hatred between the Sinhalese and Tamils and bring such untold suffering to the whole of Sri Lanka’s people. I walked past several bombings after they occurred and I have watched as the security forces board the busses checked identity cards and then arbitrarily detain ethnic Tamils. Fortunately I was never directly caught up in the conflict.

In many ways Sri Lanka is very much like the Wild West. Sri Lanka can be very lawless in many respects. I always have to rely upon my intuition to know who I’m dealing with because there are far too many of dangerous people running around who should be locked away. In many instances the police and members of the security forces are no better than the criminals they are supposed to protect people from.

Most Sri Lankans are very open, curious and good natured people. People would approach and start talking to me wherever I went and that’s how many friendships began to develop. People who were initially total strangers would take me into their homes, feed me and in some instances give me a place to stay. Sri Lankans also have a habit of asking the same kinds of questions whenever they meet a person for the first time "…Where you going? …How old are you? …Are you married?" Then they would want to know why I wasn’t married.

I like to get as far away from anything Western when I’m in Sri Lanka. I made many friends among the Tamil and Sinhalese communities and I usually end up staying out in the villages with friends. In many instances the people in these villages have never had a foreigner staying in their community before. People would often just stop and stare as if they had seen a ghost when they saw me coming down the road for the first time.

Most Sri Lankans do not enjoy the same level of material comfort as people in developed nations. People in Sri Lanka often move into their homes long before they are ever completed. They gradually make additions to their homes over time as the money becomes available. I was staying with a family who had just moved into a newly constructed home. We had running water and electricity, but there was no front or back door on the house or windows on the ground floor at the time I was staying there. Someone always had to be at home to make sure that other people didn’t come in and help themselves to any food, clothing or other meager personal possessions.

A construction crew showed up one evening to plaster the brick walls. The crew began their work around eight in the evening and continued to work until they finished the job around five in the morning. The father stayed up to assist the crew, but he fell and injured himself sometime during the night. The father was in a great deal of pain and was unable to move, so the men who showed up to plaster the walls picked him up and carried him upstairs to his bed.

The father was still in a lot of pain when I woke up the next morning. He asked me if I could help him, so I set up a table and went to work. The father began to roll back and forth on the table after the session. He was so excited and he said that he could feel the pain being pulled out of his body while we were working. The father was so grateful that he began to prostrate himself at my feet. I was shocked by his outpouring of gratitude and I stood there saying "Stop that, Get up, get up, get up …I’m just another person …I’ve worked to develop these gifts".

Life in America often feels very homogenized and packaged to me. That can be largely attributed to the fact that so many of us are spending the majority of our free time shopping or watching television. Conversely India and Sri Lanka have always felt like a land of extremes to me.

Certain aspects of the old traditional culture are extremely oppressive. The caste system has been abolished under the Indian Constitution, but there is still widespread prejudice and abuse being directed against members of the lower castes. Some individuals from the higher castes will not even allow people of the lower castes to touch them or eat off the same utensils. Individuals from the lower castes have been historically relegated to being servants or performing hard labor. Many lower caste Indians have converted to Christianity, Islam and Buddhism to escape the oppression of the caste system. Some Hindus become very upset when they see someone converting to another religion, but people are less likely to convert to other religions if they are treated with dignity and respect.

Indian society places much greater emphasis upon the family. That can be a blessing or a curse depending on the family that one is born into. There’s a form of narcissism that is fairly prevalent in India and other South Asian countries and much of the Middle East. This form of narcissism is more prevalent among people within the older generations. In many instances parents are so incredibly selfish, small minded and rigid in their world view and frozen emotionally that they are incapable of recognizing the individual needs, wants or desires of their own children. I’ve known of many instances in which a parent would deny their adult child the right to marry the person of their own choice. The parent would then compel their son or daughter to marry according to their own wishes. I can see the pain as I look into the hearts of people who have sacrificed their own dreams and ambitions or have married someone to please their parents.

It’s painful to watch instances where the parents create so much suffering in their own children’s lives and to see how some cultures reinforce these patterns. But some of the more conservative elements in all of our cultures seem to have a greater need to impose their will upon others. I have said to friends on occasion "…You were not placed here on this Earth to fulfill the selfish and small minded expectations of your parents and it’s really important for you to break the chains of bondage. If you don’t do what you feel deep within that is right for you, then you are going to be throwing your life away and parts of you on the inside are just going to wither and die. This is your life …Please …Find the courage to live it by making your own decisions and doing what you feel is right for yourself."

Every culture has its own unique flavor of neurosis or cultural insanity. People often remain stuck in their cultural dysfunction because they don’t really see that there are other ways of doing things and in many instances they never really stop to question or to examine their actions or beliefs. The feelings that people bury within themselves can also cause them to become very rigid or fixated in their world view.

India has really opened up in the past few decades and things are changing very rapidly. Many young people are still looking for their parent’s approval in their choice of a life partner and a disapproving family can still create huge problems. Fortunately, more and more people are learning to take responsibility for their lives and are making their own decisions. People from the younger generations are attaching little, if any, significance upon an individual’s caste. More people who are born into the lower castes are getting educated now and enjoying many opportunities that were not available to them in times past. Some have risen to positions of prominence within Indian society.

I love to spend time in both India and Sri Lanka and in many ways I feel more at home in these countries. I’m sure that I would feel differently if I were born in either country. Being a foreigner gives me a lot of freedom and I can get away with so many things. But my desire is to use this freedom to give other people permission to be true to themselves. I have also met so many caring and loving people and have experienced an emotional warmth that I feel from Indians and Sri Lankans unlike anything that I have ever experienced anywhere else. Many of the friendships that I have developed feel much deeper and I really appreciate the way that friends from this part of the world reach out to me.

There are many things about the Hindu religion that feel very organic to me. I ended up staying in one of the Hindu temples at various times and then I’ve spent time at many other temples. One of the priests in the temple where I was staying would have me repeating these Vedic prayers word for word. He would also have me attend when they were conducting the pujas. Sanskrit words are composed of sacred sounds and I can feel my insides reverberating as the priests chant. I can also feel the presence of the deities as they are invoked.

Individual character traits and temperament determine how responsive each of us is to healing. Cultures also help to shape our personality and there are vast differences within the mind or consciousness of people from one culture to the next. These differences will, to a large extent, determine how open or responsive people are to healing.

In many ways it was easier for me to relate to women among the various American Indian tribes who were still connected to their traditional culture. Most of the younger women in the native community that I was living in had very little interest in their own traditional culture so I never really got involved. Many of them were abusing alcohol and other substances. A number of them also ended up getting pregnant and then having children from multiple partners.

Having to return to mainstream America was a real culture shock for me. I really wanted to have someone in my life, but most of the women that I encountered could not relate to the kinds of experiences that I had gone through. There was absolutely no resonance and for a long time I felt like there was something wrong with me. I just wasn’t getting the fact that the women I was meeting were operating on such a different wavelength. I was also never was able to play the games that so many people within this culture are playing with each other’s emotions.

I stayed in the town of Taigu which is located in the Shanxi Province. Hardly anyone in community where I stayed spoke English. I had to rely on a Chinese-English dictionary to communicate much of the time and then I gradually picked up more Chinese words over time. Many of the people that I have gotten to know are very kind.

China has an extremely rich, varied and beautiful culture that goes back over five thousand years. Much of the culture was destroyed during the insanity of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Temples and monasteries were destroyed. Artists, intellectuals, priests, monks and other people associated with the old traditional culture were imprisoned, beaten and killed. Many of the internal arts masters were forced to go into hiding. So much of the ancient culture has been lost.

I feel very drawn to many aspects of the old China. The internal arts masters have always concealed their practices and the phenomenal power that they possessed. I’m very thankful that for the masters who survived to pass on their knowledge and power. I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to train with Shifu Li Tai Liang and I spend many hours practicing the forms that Shifu teaches me. I will often get little intuitional flashes that help me to refine the forms so that they become considerably more powerful. Shifu has told me about how the old masters come through to assist students who have been initiated so that they can advance to higher levels. I sometimes wonder if it’s my intuition or the old masters giving me the flashes of insight that are allowing me to refine my practice

I feel a very strong sense of familiarity with many of the people that I’ve encountered in my travels. It feels like I’m reconnecting with family whenever I get to spend time with people in these different cultures. I felt like I was connecting with a part of my family while I was living among the American Indian tribes. I feel that I’m connecting with another side of my family when I train with Li Shifu and when I’ve spent time in China. I feel the connection to a whole different set of relatives when I’m in India and Sri Lanka.

Those of us who grew up and live within our Western culture owe a great deal to the field of psychology for the understanding that we have gained our own dysfunction over the past few generations. Psychology has taught us to value ourselves as individuals and has helped us to gain a greater understanding of our basic human needs. The understanding that we have gained individually and collectively has resulted in us gaining a lot more personal freedom. We enjoy many freedoms and opportunities that are not readily available to people in other cultures and parts of the world that makes it easier for us to determine the course of our own lives.

Psychotherapy can help us to develop many of the essential coping skills that we need to function in this world and it’s an important part of the healing process for many of us. What concerns me is that I see how people are gaining an intellectual understanding of their suffering, but parts of the self are still not fully healing. I can feel the hurt and trauma that many are still holding within their bodies. Gaining an intellectual understanding is critically important, but we also need to combine psychotherapy with other resources.

People here in America are often telling me about all the books they’re reading. It’s common for people here to be reading stacks of spiritual self-help books, listening to or watching volumes of CD’s and DVD’s and attended classes and workshops. But we grew up with this model of learning and it’s all that many of us have ever known.

Doing so many years of intensive daily practice has really heightened my senses. I’m not very impressed by most of what I’m seeing spiritually here in the West. I find that many people have lots of spiritual ideas but I rarely ever feel any real power or presence moving through them. The vast majority of people have never really learned how to digest their own feelings and issues and are holding huge amounts of emotional residue within their bodies. In many instances the subtle bodies are breaking down and the physical body may also be in terrible shape.

Tibetans, Chinese, American Indians, East Indians and people from other ancient cultures have intact lineages where all kinds of special practices and powers have been passed down for thousands of years. People who grow up in these cultures tend to be more realistic in their understanding of spiritual development because there are many individual working within their traditional lineages that have developed truly extraordinary spiritual powers. These individuals did not sit around reading spiritual self-help books, listening to CD’s and attending classes and workshops. They developed their special powers because they spend their lifetime doing long hours of intensive daily spiritual practices.

I heard the native elders say on many occasions that one has to really suffer if they want to have something good. The native elders were referring to the suffering that a person goes through during the vision quest or sun dance to receive special gifts or powers.

Native people also understood that personal and spiritual development is a lifelong process and it was common for people to go through the vision quest or do other forms of intensive practice throughout the course of their lives. Many of these individuals possessed amazing gifts of healing and other kinds of powers and they continued to grow more powerful over time. They knew how to access the forces of nature and they would allow various powers and beings to work through them to heal the sick, change the weather or protect them from harm in times of danger.

The need for daily practice

Our Western bodies and minds Westerner’s bodies and minds often become very dense or congested with all the emotions and other stresses that we are not digesting. I end up spending a lot of additional time at the beginning of the healing session getting the people that I work with here in America to do practices to help them to dissolve the layers of stress and emotional armor. I usually start by having them breathe into the feelings and sensations that they are experiencing within their bodies.

I know of a number of exceptional Westerners who have spent a great deal of time training in various disciplines in places like India or China. These individuals have fully immersed themselves in practice and in many instances they have developed to very high levels as a result of their hard work and dedication. But I have found it much more difficult to get people here in America to do any form of consistent practice.

There are so many things about lives that are stressful and all of these stresses are continually accumulating within our bodies. We tend to contract in response to these stresses and in so many instances we become overly identified with the hurts, losses and setbacks that we have experienced in our lives. Our bodies begin to reflect these stresses over time and the narrowing that takes place within our consciousness causes us to lose sight of the big picture.

I was talking with a friend the other day and she was saying "I’ve become more cognizant of the fact that so many people really don’t know how to deal with their feelings or issues and then many others are shutting down intentionally. People who are not processing their feelings and issues often feel so horrible on the inside and so they end up numbing out with alcohol and other substances, they’re spending way too much time in front of the television or they stuff themselves with food. I can see how all of these things are dulling people’s senses and causing them to become very sluggish. Their eyes have a glazed over appearance. They look as if they’re really stoned or hypnotized all the time and there’s no longer any spark in their eyes."

I’ve been doing so much intensive practice for years. I really needed to do all of these practices initially because I was so deeply wounded. I continue to do the practices because I find that I’m developing more resources and I feel more and more connected to the force of creation. What feels very strange to me is that I look around and see that so many people not really growing. They’re locked into a holding pattern and in many instances they are sinking even further into their dysfunction. Most people do not feel very present to me. I feel how stressful situations are impacting them and I feel the undigested emotional residue that is accumulating within their bodies. I can also feel how that’s causes people to contract. I feel how all these stresses narrows people’s intellectual and emotional range and that’s why many possess so little insight, self awareness or understanding.

All of us are to some extent frozen in some form of cultural trance. Many of us never really stop and ask ourselves "Why do I believe this? …Is this really working for me? …and what kind of impact is it having upon other people around me?" We may never really examine their own or other people’s religious or spiritual or cultural traditions or try out different kinds of practices. To a large extent we go along with what other people around us are doing and in many respects we’re running on autopilot.

I feel the layers of cultural baggage as I interact with people. The authentic core gets buried under so many layers of buried emotions and other stress and all of the cultural habits of thinking and doing. I look for the authentic core of an individual and I do everything I can to support the emergence of this part of the self as I work with people or interact with them in any other context.

We all need to be doing some form of daily practice. We need to start by examining our beliefs, the way that we’re living our lives and the choices that we are making. Breathing into our feelings and sensations will help us to soften our rigidity by helping us to break up and digest the emotional residue and the other stresses that are accumulating within our bodies. Practices such as chi gong and pranayama will help us to draw more life force into our bodies. We also need to make use of other resources that are available to us. Yagyas, healing sessions and vision quests help to repair damage within the physical and subtle bodies and to develop the internal resources and capabilities that we need to fulfill our purpose. All of these practices and resources help to open us up so that we can step outside of the box and live our lives connected to something much greater than ourselves.