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The Basic Mechanism of Pain and Suffering that Every Human Should Know

Early in my career, I found it gratifying to treat pain and I was pretty good at it. The art of choosing the right acupuncture points is fascinating, creative, and… Read More

Once More with Feeling

If you’ve ever done something reactionary, without thinking it through, there was a certain element that spurred you to act even though you might not have been aware of it…. Read More

Bring more attention to the things you say to others. Just notice your words and the energy behind them.
Try to perceive the impact your words have. These first two steps can teach you SO much.
See if you can pause before you speak – even if just for one second. In this space there’s a moment to align yourself – a moment to make sure the words match your true intention. You could ask yourself, “Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?” or the simpler “What is my purpose?” But even if you forget to do this, try to still practice step 2 – perceive the impact of your words. If it’s not a favorable impact, you can still ask yourself if your words were true, kind, and necessary, and you can retrospectively figure out what purpose you were serving by speaking as you did.

If you’re on the receiving end of a communication that feels unproductive (or worse), you can try asking, “What’s your purpose?” Not everyone can receive that question and give you a heartfelt response, but it can serve as an opening to a more authentic exchange (which should also include being responsible for your own feelings and interpretations). As I tried to express earlier in this article, sometimes we can allow others’ perceptions of us to affect us even if they have no qualifications and even if we don’t really care what they think. A simple statement like, “Are you feeling run down?” or “You seem to be carrying around a lot of anger,” can get your mind spinning and cause you to feel something’s wrong. Remind yourself that people project their feelings on each other all the time and people are simply wrong a lot. If someone is intuitive enough to pick up something really important, hopefully they’re also intuitive enough to recognize how it would affect you to tell you this information. Finally, when someone tells you something about yourself, it’s useful to run it through your own intuition. Does it feel true to you? If you have trouble accessing your intuition, I recommend you join my wife’s group, Love Rising. She helps people develop this faculty. In this age of “fake news,” social media, and presidential communications being made via Twitter, it’s more vital than ever that we practice discernment with what’s coming in and we become clear about our intentions before we speak. Be well, Dr. Peter Borten _____________

These three questions have also been (probably erroneously) attributed to Rumi, Buddha, Socrates, Shirdi Sai Baba, and others – though this attribution is apparently because these teachers all had similar things to say about right speech. I haven’t been able to find proof that anyone but Stewart asked these questions in these exact words.

2. The question Is it true? can be asked on different levels. In an absolute sense, it could be argued that it’s impossible to know anything objective for certain (see The Work of Byron Katie, John Locke, etc.). This would cause one to always answer “no” to the question of truth, and to hence refrain from ever speaking again. I believe Stewart meant it in an everyday way – i.e., would most reasonable and kind people agree that it’s true? – and I think that’s sufficient for most cases.

[post_title] => Like Medicine or Bullets: Our Words [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => like-medicine-or-bullets-our-words [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2019-05-28 21:15:25 [post_modified_gmt] => 2019-05-28 21:15:25 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://thedragontree.com/?p=7284 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 5 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 7428 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2019-05-22 20:32:07 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-05-22 20:32:07 [post_content] => As a teenager I spent a lot of time in the tunnels of Boston’s subway system. They were brightly tiled in red, blue, green, and orange, and there was a smell that I’ll never forget – not terrible, not pleasant – that poured forth in gusts as a train approached. I sat on benches with my head down, doing homework or reading the liner notes of albums, and generally nobody bothered me. Except the evangelists, that is. I was often told that I needed to accept Jesus as my lord and savior – or else burn in hell. One guy had a sandwich board that listed all the reasons you could go to hell – rock ’n’ roll, masturbation, homosexuality, fornication, socialism, feminism, atheism, etc. – and he liked to give me the stink eye as I walked by. Sometimes I’d run into the Hare Krishnas, who told me that my whole way of life was wrong and tried to get me to come to their temple. And at home, we were visited weekly by Jehovah’s Witnesses who were determined to win us over despite being told repeatedly that we already had a religion. Religion felt like a heavy inheritance, and these exchanges made me averse to being told what to believe – so averse that I threw the baby out with the spiritual bathwater and turned my back on it altogether. Eventually I was able to recognize that the spiritual connection – which religion aims to facilitate – doesn’t require a religious structure, and it certainly doesn’t require dogma. But even years later, having studied yoga, qi gong, reiki, acupuncture, Daoism, and other practices that offer a non-dogmatic approach to spiritual enrichment, I still found it difficult to speak openly to students and patients about spirituality because I didn’t want to come across like those evangelists – pushy, judgmental, and condescending. However, I had seen firsthand the positive impact of a spiritual practice – and it’s supported by scientific research: people with a spiritual practice tend to have less stress, greater resilience during challenging times, more positive engagement with community, better health, and a longer life. So, little by little, I began delicately broaching the subject. I touched on it in some articles, and then Briana and I covered it a bit more explicitly in the book The Well Life. Meanwhile, I observed more and more cases where the presence of a spiritual practice was instrumental in a patient’s recovery. It would be untrue to say that people can’t be happy or can’t overcome challenges without a spiritual practice, but for those who find it difficult to achieve lasting happiness or who seem beset by one challenge after another, a spiritual practice often makes the difference. The same is often the case for those who feel their achievements are somehow hollow, or who constantly feel that something is missing – that emptiness may be the absence of a spiritual dimension, a means by which one’s individual pursuits are connected to the whole. Finally, a few years ago, we decided to stop beating around the bush. We wrote a book called Rituals for Transformation – a 108-day process for awakening this dimension of your life. Briana doesn't really have any hang-ups around this topic, but I was a bit nervous about releasing it. Even though it’s not a religious book, I thought it might push some of those buttons. After all, religion has been not only a structure for spiritual connection, but also an instrument for political control, discrimination, and genocide – and these associations aren’t easily erased from our collective consciousness. But part of our aim with this book is to help people see that spirituality is the baby that many of us threw out because we didn’t resonate with the bathwater. Your spiritual life is yours to define, and spirituality is available to everyone – religious and nonreligious, theist and atheist. When you have an experience of this dimension, whether through prayer or mindfulness or a spontaneous connection with nature that transcends everyday consciousness, it’s funny to consider that we talk about wanting to give a sliver of our lives to it, or that it’s “available” to us if we’d like some, like, “Sprinkles are available for your ice cream,” because the reality is that it’s always here, and it encompasses the whole of your life. But a little is enough, so we were careful not to make Rituals for Transformation so ambitious as to be difficult to complete. I remember my first qi gong teacher explaining that although we were beginning with exercises that would only take 20 minutes of each day, the change in consciousness they’d produce would begin to spread into the rest of our lives. She was right – it wasn’t long before I started to be aware of my energy and below-the-surface interactions with the world, even when I was just walking down a street or eating or having a conversation. I’d love to hear about your experience with religion and/or spirituality and how this practice has supported you – or, if you don’t have a spiritual practice, what has gotten in the way. Be well, Peter [post_title] => Ditch the Dogma, Keep the Spirituality [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => ditch-the-dogma-keep-the-spirituality [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2019-05-28 18:30:12 [post_modified_gmt] => 2019-05-28 18:30:12 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://thedragontree.com/?p=7428 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 2 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) [2] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 7077 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2018-07-25 17:36:18 [post_date_gmt] => 2018-07-25 17:36:18 [post_content] => The crown chakra, called Sahasrara, is situated at the very top of the head, which is an energetic center or portal recognized by cultures worldwide. It’s part of why Jews and Muslims wear head coverings. If the soles of the feet are our closest connection with the earthly realm and the solid ground beneath us, the top of the head, as the opposite pole, is closest to the ethereal realm, the heavens, or the unseen. Thus, it’s widely regarded as a link to our spiritual nature. While each of the previous chakras had some degree of association with the body, the senses, and the world of duality, this is not the case with the seventh chakra. Traditionally, it signifies a state of total unification with God or consciousness itself. This chakra is depicted as a lotus with a thousand petals (really, “thousand” is meant to signify some unfathomable number) - an opening of consciousness on an unfathomable scale. Interestingly, there is an acupuncture point at the same location and its name is Bai Hui - “hundred meetings” (again, “hundred” is used to connote some large number). Bai hui is considered to be a place where many different energy channels come together, and it’s a highly significant point in the practices of Qi Gong and Tai Chi. Many sources have little to say about the seventh chakra, sometimes not even considering it a chakra, but more of a final destination that can only be experienced. Aghori Vimalananda described it as such: “When Kundalini moves from the Ajna [sixth chakra] into the Sahasrara [seventh chakra] the final shreds of identity are lost and the sadhaka [spiritual seeker] merges completely with the Universal Soul. All differentiation is lost, and the result is Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the samadhi (state of profound one-pointed consciousness) in which nothing is perceived except the Universal Soul. All determination and indecision drop away, all fluctuations of the mind disappear. You are finished! Gone to the land of no return!" Caroline Myss, approaching it more as a developmental challenge, writes that the seventh chakra represents “our capacity to allow our spirituality to become an integral part of our physical lives and guide us.” Much in line with the Daoist conception of Bai Hui, she describes it as an “entry point” for life force to pour into us, and says it “contains the energy that generates devotion, inspirational and prophetic thoughts, transcendent ideas, and mystical connections.” Myss also states that this chakra “motivates us to seek an intimate connection with the Divine in everything we do,” and she asserts that “seeking a personal spiritual connection shakes us to our core.… In seeking union with the Divine, we are asking to have all physical, psychological, and emotional ‘illusions’ removed from our lives.” Myss emphasizes that, in contrast to the way we typically approach organized religion, which is often motivated by a (first chakra) drive to adhere to the “group mind” or belong to a tribe, the desire for an intimate connection with the spiritual realm invites us to relinquish the concern for acceptance by our tribe. Myss considers spiritual “crises” to be a challenge of the seventh chakra, and says they present with three symptoms: First, there’s “an awareness of an absence of meaning and purpose that cannot be remedied merely by shuffling the external components of one’s life.” She is clear to point out that simply being unable to find meaning and purpose, but still expecting life to deliver it, isn’t quite the same thing. She says it’s accompanied by a feeling that “something is trying to wake up inside them.” Second, there are strange new fears. Not typical human fears, but fears that make a person feel they’re losing touch with their identity - that they don’t know who they are or what they want. And third, there is a “need to experience devotion to something greater than oneself.” Myss writes that this is a need rarely mentioned in psychological texts, but that we all need to be connected to “a source of power that transcends human limitation and turmoil … a source of miracles and hope.” Myss says that while these three symptoms could arise from a psychological dilemma, when the root is spiritual there’s no desire to blame other people for the crisis, because there’s a recognition that the cause is within us. She recommends a spiritual guide, rather than a psychological counselor for help in navigating this passage. In light of the differences between the words of Vimalananda and Dr. Myss, I feel it’s important to state once again that there are two main orientations to the chakras. The historical yogic or Tantrik orientation is that they are stations of spiritual awakening, perhaps traversed one by one through the arousal of a powerful force known as Kundalini, generally through diligent practice, and that mastering each one represents a tremendous accomplishment. (I should also reiterate that there are many different perspectives on the chakras even within the Indian scriptures.) Thus, from this standpoint, arriving at the crown chakra might mean the end of one’s human existence, at least in any usual form. The modern Western orientation is that the chakras are subtle, functional energetic centers that color our mental, physical, and spiritual life. They represent stages of development, with each chakra being associated with a set of challenges, and each capable of producing signs and symptoms of imbalance. Even though the Western version is more accessible to me, I must admit I don’t feel the same kind of reverence for it that I have for the historical tradition. Our modern interpretation is one of too many cases of Westerners discovering and appropriating something fascinating from another culture, running it through our filters, cross-referencing it with other philosophies, and reinventing it. Some of our extrapolations are still theoretical and haven’t been tested over time. There are pros and cons to purism. Sometimes dedicated instruction in a tried-and-true methodology is safer and more effective than trying it on in a casual, self-directed way. And learning a synthesis of a variety of philosophies might result in our missing out on benefits that could only be realized through a deeper, more formalized immersion in any one of these philosophies. But purism can also get us stuck in laborious or ineffective practices that have only endured because of blind adherence to tradition. In any case, there are very few Westerners who are willing or able to undertake an exploration of the chakras in the way that they were historically approached (and even fewer teachers capable of guiding such an exploration). So, in my opinion, the most effective role I can play is to meet my readers where they are and offer them something they can assimilate, with the hope that if it resonates with them, they’ll earnestly pursue a deeper study and personal inquiry. Here I’ve partially copied a table from Anodea Judith’s book, Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to the Self. These interpretations are not exactly traditional, but I think you’ll find them thought-provoking.

**Click to enlarge** I realize I digressed quite a bit in this article, but I wanted to return to the challenges I presented at the outset of these articles - balancing the traditional and the modern, and weighing the value of precise accuracy against that of better comprehension. Only toward the end of writing these eight articles did I become aware of some of my own biases, and I want to mention them here for two reasons. First, I’d like to let them go. Second, perhaps this will help some readers notice and relinquish their own biases. Here goes: I tend to put more stock in Eastern sources of spirituality; I tend to feel Westerners are looking for shortcuts and are rarely willing to commit to a lifelong spiritual practice; I tend to feel that historical spiritual teachers were sages and that modern ones are often charlatans; and I tend to feel that old practices are more legitimate than new ones because someone just “made the new practice up” (even though that’s exactly what someone did with the old practices). With these subconsious biases, I felt a lot of conflict in writing these articles - partly because I’m a Westerner and I’m contributing to the co-opting of this philosophy! But the fact is, I could be wrong about all of these notions, and indeed, my own life experience doesn’t support them. I have known Westerners who are enlightened, who are fiercely committed to doing their work and cutting through their illusions, who are absolutely authentic in how they present themselves, and who are probably more effective at facilitating positive change among their own people than an outside might be. If you'd like to try an exercise to build awareness of this energy center, try this stance from Qi Gong and Tai Chi. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and a slight bend in your knees. Make sure the insides of your thighs are slightly engaged as you spread your knees a bit so that they are in line with your feet. Bring your hands out in front of you as if you were resting them on a big Buddha belly. The palms face the abdomen and are a few inches apart. There is space under each armpit (enough for a tennis ball to fit there) and the elbows are lifted slightly so that the arms form a circle. Now for the magic. Imagine that there is a string attached to the very top of your head - directly in line with the tips of your ears - and that it's pulling you upward. Imagine that you're suspended by this string. It makes it effortless to stand in this way. Next, imagine there is another string attached to the tip of your tailbone - or a place at the absolute base of the torso, in line with the point on the top of your head. Imagine that this string pulls downward, coaxing you to deepen your squat (still keeping the knees in line with the feet, not letting them go past the line of your toes). The lower string pulls down and the upper string pulls up. You spine gets longer and longer. You are suspended between these two forces. Breathe deeply, engage your body while remaining peaceful. And stand here for a minute, or five (or twenty!). I hope you’ve benefited from this series and I wish you the best in opening to greater self-awareness, peace, and freedom. Be well, Dr. Peter Borten [post_title] => The Crown that Obliterates Social Status [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => the-crown-that-obliterates [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2019-06-27 22:50:32 [post_modified_gmt] => 2019-06-27 22:50:32 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => http://thedragontree.com/?p=7077 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 8 [filter] => raw [webinar_id] => 0 ) ) [post_count] => 3 [current_post] => -1 [in_the_loop] => [post] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 7284 [post_author] => 3 [post_date] => 2019-03-12 18:27:49 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-03-12 18:27:49 [post_content] => Once upon a time, I was finishing an intake with a new patient and I semi-jokingly asked her, “Is there anything else I should know before I stick needles in you?” “Yes,” she replied, “I don’t have a second chakra. An intuitive healer told me so.” I was living in Portland and I remember thinking this exchange would have been perfect for a scene in Portlandia. But she seemed genuinely concerned about it. Imagine where your mind might go if someone you trusted told you, “Everyone has a set of vital energy centers. They’re thought to be instrumental to your health, happiness, expression, and spiritual growth. And you’re missing one of them.” I was reminded of this conversation when a friend told me of a similar experience last week. She had taken her daughter to get a massage, and at the end of the treatment the therapist stated that he had picked up important information about the girl which he felt compelled to share. According to his intuition, her daughter had some significant internal and developmental health issues. However, he didn’t quite know what they were or what could be done about them. I’ve been on the receiving end of similar comments myself. I once visited a Chinese massage therapist to see if he could help my tension headaches. After working on my back and neck, he felt my pulse and gave me a grave look as he spoke the only five English words of our session: “Your lungs are very weak.” Another time, I bumped into a woman at a party who looked familiar. It turned out she was a cashier at a little organic co-op where I often picked up a morning snack. She said, “Hey, you’re that afraid guy!” “Excuse me?” I said, feeling very confused. “A bunch of us watch you come into the store and you barely say anything,” she explained. “We talk about how you’re too terrified to speak. We’re like, ‘Here’s the fear guy’ when you come in. What are you so afraid of?” She looked well-meaning but smug. The idea that I didn’t make more small talk because I was full of fear felt completely off the mark to me. I recall not hiding my displeasure well and I said something like, “I’m flattered that you’re all so concerned, but I think you’ve misread me.” However, I couldn’t help thinking, Am I unknowingly giving off some kind of fearful vibe? – just as I also fretted, Is there something wrong with my lungs? My friend had a similar reaction. Despite having always thought of her kid as healthy and robust, she’s now wondering if she should get her specialized medical testing. And the woman I mentioned at the beginning was worried about the problems that might result from lacking a second chakra. I think it’s great for people to develop and utilize their intuition, but I also think it’s important to practice what Buddhists call right speech or sammā-vācā. The scriptures of Hinduism, Buddhism, and other religions include instructions on when and how to speak in a way that contributes positively. These instructions can be pretty well summed up by three succinct questions that were taught by Rev. James Haldane Stewart (1778-1854) to be asked of oneself before speaking: Is it true? It is kind? Is it necessary?¹ If the practitioners and cashier mentioned above had sincerely asked themselves the first question before sharing, they may have concluded that they didn’t really know for certain that their hunches were true. And then, no one would have heard anything about a missing chakra or weak lungs.² However, they might have responded, “Well, it feels true to me,” which brings us to the next questions. Is it kind? There’s a bit of personal discretion in determining what’s kind. When the intuitive healer decided to tell the woman she had no second chakra, perhaps he thought, “This is kind because it will enable her to get the help she needs,” or, “This is kind because she can understand herself better with this information.” However, without providing any solution or direction, it wasn’t kind – and that goes for all the other cases above, too. Finally, is it necessary? Does the other person need to know what we might say? One could argue that all sorts of harmful communications are necessary, but if we’re really honest with ourselves about this criterion, most are not. Of the three questions, this one could be unnecessarily restrictive if we were to apply it robotically. Of course, it’s not necessary to deliver a compliment or to express one’s awe at the beauty of the snow, so this leads us to a fourth useful question (of unknown origin, but often attributed to Indian holy man Shirdi Sai Baba): Does it improve upon the silence? Again, it’s a matter of personal opinion, but if we were to consider before opening our mouth, “Is this likely to degrade or enhance the atmosphere?” it’s not too difficult to predict. For people who are reasonably self-aware, there’s a single question that gets to the root of all four of the above. Before you say something that’s likely to have an impact on another: what is your purpose? Is your purpose to help? To cause pain? To impress? To prove something? To provoke conflict? To connect? To love? I would guess that part of the purpose – if not the sole purpose – behind all the questionable communications discussed above was to appear magical or unusually insightful in order to gain power, respect, or approval. I’ve focused on these cases because of how often I’ve encountered people who seem to believe that having a feeling about someone means their interpretation is true and must be shared. But of course, these aren’t the only kinds of communications that are made for less-than-noble purposes. In looking at my own poor communications, I’ve realized that my most common offense is to crack jokes that aren’t funny or appropriate. My purpose has been mainly to generate warmth between me and the other person (usually my wife) or to bring lightness to the atmosphere. When I’ve failed at this purpose, it’s often been because I was actually serving a secret, ulterior purpose: to make myself feel comfortable. When I’m committed to a purpose of fostering warmth and lightness, it goes differently. There may still be jokes – eventually – but I have to begin with a willingness to be totally present for the other person – even if it’s uncomfortable. I encourage you to try this over the coming week:

Bring more attention to the things you say to others. Just notice your words and the energy behind them.
Try to perceive the impact your words have. These first two steps can teach you SO much.
See if you can pause before you speak – even if just for one second. In this space there’s a moment to align yourself – a moment to make sure the words match your true intention. You could ask yourself, “Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?” or the simpler “What is my purpose?” But even if you forget to do this, try to still practice step 2 – perceive the impact of your words. If it’s not a favorable impact, you can still ask yourself if your words were true, kind, and necessary, and you can retrospectively figure out what purpose you were serving by speaking as you did.

These three questions have also been (probably erroneously) attributed to Rumi, Buddha, Socrates, Shirdi Sai Baba, and others – though this attribution is apparently because these teachers all had similar things to say about right speech. I haven’t been able to find proof that anyone but Stewart asked these questions in these exact words.

You may also be interested in:

Like Medicine or Bullets: Our Words

Ditch the Dogma, Keep the Spirituality

The Crown that Obliterates Social Status

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