When we are peaceful, we can be ourselves in a very honest way.

This is possible regardless of how we are feeling because peace is itself not an emotion.

Peace is an intrinsic quality of awareness, which is why peacefulness feels so grounding.

That groundedness is the most reliable support we have when encountering all of ourselves.

It is the antidote to our uptightness, to our inward cringing, and to our compulsion to accept or reject what we find inside.

We touch the ground, we are the ground, and we find that we have the space to meet whatever is there.

As awareness, we can be present with ourselves in complete honesty.

Then we will finally feel natural.

We shrink away from the experiences that make us feel squeamish: fear, awkwardness, shame, self-consciousness, and the like. Not knowing how to manage the involuntary cringe, we try to force a deliberate ignorance to make it go away. We avert our gaze, cover our face, or look at our phones.

Some people want so badly to avoid feeling cringe that they will carefully shape their words and actions, continuously monitoring and censoring themselves until it becomes conditioned into their consciousness.

When we kill the part of ourselves that is cringe, we become rigid and contrived. We lose access to the freshness and authenticity discovered in unconditioned spontaneity. As a result, we also become predictable and more easily manipulated.

What is the alternative? Freedom, of course.

If instead of hiding you stay with the experience, feeling all the cringe and enduring all the squeamishness, you create the opportunity to see through its illusion. You weaken and eventually break the power these experiences had over you.

Continue on that path long enough and you will awaken from the cringing fake self entirely.

Cut It Open

American society values property and commodities more than it does the humans living on its soil. It’s not until the people riot and destroy said property that those in power actually start to take seriously the outrage of the public. Too many times has the system let everyone down. And for too long has this been going on. 

Remember Trayvon Martin? Remember Ferguson? Remember Freddie Gray? Remember Eric Garner? Remember Ahmaud Arbery? Remember Remember Remember…George Floyd. Who’s name will be next?

The police system is infected with a racist retrovirus that has inserted itself into the very genetic makeup of the force. A college fraternity armed with guns and immunity to the word of law. A pathetic organization of fragile egos and basic minds charged with an immense responsibility and given our trust. 

They don’t deserve it from us.

I look at the rioting, the burned buildings and police stations, and think, “What did you expect?” I don’t blame the rioters, nor the spirits of fear and rage and pain and frustration that possess entire crowds and stir them to havoc. What did you expect? 

And the mentally incapable terminally deranged president has the gall to advocate for the shooting of American citizens. That his tweet isn’t the most outrageous thing I’ve seen today just speaks to where things are.

The police, the system, the piece of shit sitting in the white house, all of it needs a complete overhaul. 

Cut it open. It’s time for surgery.

Sums it up.