Change Your Thoughts-Change Your Life Part 2 of 20: Living Creatively
March 31, 2009 by dr. lam · 17 Comments
The 6th Verse of the Tao Te Ching:
The spirit that never dies
is called the mysterious feminine.
Although she becomes the whole universe,
her immaculate purity is never lost.
Although she assumes countless forms,
her true identity remains intact.
The gateway to the mysterious female
is called the root of creation.
Listen to her voice,
hear it echo through creation.
Without fail, she reveals her presence.
Without fail, she brings us to our own perfection.
Although it is invisible, it endures;
it will never end.
I particularly love this verse because I can relate to it so very well. I have a tremendously creative spirit that I feel is unbounded. I also have a great feminine sensibility about me, i.e., I am sensitive to people’s emotions and thoughts more than many of my male colleagues, peers, and friends. I am very much attuned to my creative and my “feminine” side. I think Lao-Tzu is focused on seeing ourselves as infinitely creative and who do not perceive boundaries to that creativity. I recall so many people seeing my paintings that I made that adorn the walls of my office and of my building and say, “Wow, I would never feel so confident to put any of my paintings for others to see.” I thought, “Why not?” It never even occurred to me that someone else’s judgment of my art even mattered.
I think as children we are infinitely creative and are rewarded for our creative input. As adults, we are so berated by other people about what is considered good or bad, that we become introspective and reclusive in our opinions and thoughts. I am not entirely immune to this, but I exercise a profound and unfettered creativity in my artistry as a plastic surgeon (obviously with your assent and consent) as well as in almost everything that I do.
Today when you go out look at a child and see how a child is unrestricted in his/her creative energy that is almost inexhaustible and not bound by societal dictates and constraints, by gender norms, or by arbitrary standards of quality. Then go out today and free your creative sensibility and get in touch with your feminine nature whether you are a man or a woman. It shouldn’t matter. Think of how you will express your own creative energy through a vibrant individualism that radiates to others. Live creatively.
Change Your Thoughts-Change Your Life Part 1 of 20: The Mystery & The Paradox
March 30, 2009 by dr. lam · 21 Comments
Well, we return to our old friend, Dr. Wayne Dyer, for more astute profundity; and we also return to the Far East for more enlightened wisdom. Dyer spent a year reading various translations and interpretations of the classic Chinese text, the Tao Te Ching, which was written by Lao-Tzu, a prophet who was the keeper of the imperial archives in the ancient capital of Luoyang during the period of the warring states (about 2,500 years ago). Lao-Tzu, escaping the chaos, ventured westward into the desert and a gatekeeper named Yin Hsi begged the great master to pen this work of 81 verses so as to pass on that wisdom to others (or so the legend goes). So we have one of the greatest works in the world for wisdom of how to live a peaceful, balanced, and joyous life. The Tao (the T pronounced as a D) simply means “the Way”, Te means “the shape and power” (that is, how the Tao manifests), and Ching means “book”.
We will begin a month-long meditation on the Tao Te Ching (the longest blog series to date) that will only scratch the surface of the book and will also be filled with some of the life lessons that I have learned, i.e., to say be tainted by own personal biases that stand even apart from Dyer’s. Before I begin, I would like to thank my good friend and colleague, St. Clair Newbern IV, who on our EO business retreat last month to Marble Falls, Texas, suggested that I read this book and investigate the truths found therein. He professed that he was able to cull many valuable life lessons from this ancient tome, and I have similarly had the same good fortune. Obviously, I shall not explore all 81 verses, just the ones that I have found to be the most cogent and that resonate personally with me. I have focused on only 20 of the 81 verses that have been selected for minimal redundancy and maximal impact first for me and hopefully in turn for you. I hope you find them to be as germane for your life as I have for my own.
Let’s begin with Verse 1:
The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal name.
The Tao is both named and nameless.
As nameless it is the origin of all things;
as named it is the Mother of 10,000 things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery;
ever desiring, one sees only the manifestations.
And the mystery itself is the doorway
to all understanding.
The ineffable quality of the Tao bespeaks the paradoxical nature of Chinese thought: the yin and the yang, two contradictory notions that can be held as one. Western thought abhors this illogical quality in Eastern tradition. However, is there some useful truth in all of this? Dyer talks about how we can separate trying and doing. Sometimes trying is doing, and sometimes they are separate ideas. Dyer talks about the difference between wanting to love and loving, wanting to go to sleep and sleeping, and wanting to diet and dieting. The act of allowing rather than forcing something is where the Tao resides. Further the “naming” he talks about here is the constant desire that we have to force a category or append a label onto something in front of us.
The thing that I have worked on this past year is not forcing things, forcing relationships, forcing or imposing but ALLOWING. Sometimes, we simply try to control too much around us and we fail. Sometimes we are consumed too much with wanting and desiring rather than enjoying what is in front of us. Those are my personal thoughts on the abstruse nature of this verse and how it applies to my life. Today, try to just be an open vessel. Don’t force too much around you. Let things unfold in front of you without the need to apply direct force on everything around you.
The Mastery of Love Part 10 of 10: Healing and Freedom
March 27, 2009 by dr. lam · 24 Comments
How do we restore all of this emotional pain and wounding that resides within us? First, we have to stop believing me, Sam Lam. Second, you have to stop believing yourself. Third, you must stop believing everyone else. When we stop listening to our own lies and anyone around us, we can start to listen to our own hearts. When we come to that peace, we will begin to achieve happiness and freedom.
Let’s imagine one of the worst possible sins against us, rape. What if you were raped 10 years ago? If you continue to hold that anger against someone else, then it will lead to your continued suffering. If you say, “I cannot forgive that person” then you will not be free. You will continue to live in your own personal hell. The past is gone. If you forgive the other person, you are doing it for yourself. You are freeing yourself. Once you forgive yourself, you will forgive those around you. Once you have offered unmitigated forgiveness, you will begin to love again and to be free from your own dream of hell. Forgiveness will give you freedom from your own personal, emotional wounds that dwell so very deeply within you and me. We will be able to offer a voice of healing and by doing so we can create our own freedom from that hell in which we reside. Create your own dream today and create the dream for your life. Begin with forgiveness, starting with your own. Love yourself, and be free. That is the beginning of the mastery of love…a journey that I am on myself.
The Mastery of Love Part 9 of 10: Sex, The Biggest Demon in Hell
March 26, 2009 by dr. lam · 11 Comments
Ruiz’s treatment of the need for sex is nothing short of brilliant. We have bodily needs that must be fulfilled that include food, water, shelter, sleep, and sex. However, we grow up with a tremendous amount of puritanical ambivalence toward sexuality and related guilt. What Ruiz tries to do is to separate the mind from the body. He argues that sometimes when we eat, we still need more food even though our body is fully sated. Sometimes we need more clothing to purchase not because our body demands it but because our mind pushes us toward further acquisitions for the simple sake of it. Our mind and body are joined but separate. When we confuse the two, that is when we get into trouble. Our body may require sex but our mind doesn’t. Our mind needs love.
He uses an example of a married woman who encounters a handsome gentleman in the street and who starts to feel physically attracted to him. She then feels guilt about what she felt and then turns away. She sees him again, and her hormones rise exponentially. She then commits adultery with this man and feels a combination of exhilaration and self hatred. Although we cannot deny when our bodies feel attraction, we act on those desires when we would lead to our own destruction because our mind is not satisfied. We must separate bodily needs from the fragility of what our mind wants.
When we begin to realize that eating for the sake of eating only leads to obesity, and buying more and more clothing only leads to an insatiable desire for more clothing, then we realize the faults of the mind and not the body. We must attribute the failures in our mind and not the body. Our body wants what it wants but our mind is oftentimes the culprit for pushing us toward things that would lead to our own self destruction because we do not perceive it to be a problem in the mind.
To return to the last several days of blogs, when we begin to love ourselves unconditionally, we will be able to love those around us in a similar way and we will attract those individuals into our lives. Too often when we are on a pattern of self destruction like excessive drinking and eating, our mind (and not our body) wants to be around others with a similar predisposition. If we go to a bar, who are we going to find? Of course, people that like to drink. Then we start hanging out with those people who like to drink. What happens when we leave that self-abusive behavior? Our “friends” cannot understand us and we then feel alienated. We must then find new friends that vibrate at our new energy level. We must always be sensitive to what our body desires and what our mind tells us we desire.
The Mastery of Love Part 8 of 10: The Dream Master
March 25, 2009 by dr. lam · 8 Comments
As you recall, the Toltecs look at life as a dream. There are two dreams: your personal dream and the collective dream of the world. Those two dreams intermingle. In fact, as we grow up, our personal dream is the dream that is imposed to us through the process of domestication. We accept the larger dream out there because that is what we are taught and what we think is right. However, we can develop our own dream by our perception of that illusion and carve out our life the way that we want to live.
The Toltecs divide people in this world into dreamers and stalkers. Dreamers create their own destiny by changing their perception. Stalkers act and react to the world constantly. Their ego stands in the way, and they take things personally. Like a leopard, they are ready to pounce when they are attacked and they attack back. They are filled with self loathing, self hatred, and self pity. ”Why don’t I make more money? I deserve it. Why am I not happier? I deserve it.” Or, “I am just not good enough. I wish I were smarter.” These ideas of self hatred breed self contempt and are filled with emotional poison. When someone attacks them, they want to release their own emotional poison because they are filled with it and can’t keep it to themselves.
As we talked about yesterday, if you begin with loving yourself, then you can change the world and make your personal dream to fill the collective dream around you. These blogs that I write are my way of changing the way that I see the world little by little and day by day. You are on the journey of self discovery, and I am blessed that you are with me. I feel connected to all of you, my readers and responders. Let’s look at the world today with an abundant energy of self love. Let’s take a step back and remember the 4 agreements: 1. always be impeccable with your word, 2. never take anything personally, 3. never make assumptions, and 4. always do your best.