Uradiance

Nate Loomis of New Renaissance Bookshop interviewed me and I loved the questions he asked. Here is the transcript from their e-news letter, which goes out to over 10,000 people. Thanks, Nate... 'May the pilgrim melt into her path, the path into the goal, the goal into Presence, the very first step into waylessness.' ~Fred LaMotte This Sunday, February 26th, Fred will lead "Poetry – Path to the Heart: A Guided Meditation & Interactive Poetry-Making Circle." NATE: Tell us about how you discovered your love of poetry? FRED: My earliest memory underlies every poem: it is a world of silence in blossom, an ocean of fragrant flowers without names, even before my mother started telling me: “lilac, magnolia, dogwood, wisteria.” If a poem can take you back into that silence, even for a moment, it is a poem. In 7th grade I was searching for I knew not what in the school library. I saw a book whose author’s name refused capital letters: "e. e...

"Passing beyond the three Gunas of nature - purity, restlessness, delusion - repose in unity." ~Bhagavad Gita Constantly driven to action by a restless mind, this same restlessness judges its own action to be superior to another's. But without any still and timeless center of reference, how could this mind judge whether the construction of the world's tallest building is more monumental than the silence of a trillium blossoming in forest shadows? Whether a million marchers in the street are more significant than one healing touch on the forehead of a feverish infant? Whether the overnight collapse of Wall Street is more meaningful than the imperceptible rise of one degree centigrade over a decade in desolate arctic ice fields? Does the cry of a loon through mist on still water herald a transformation of the entire earth? Will you notice it when it happens? "Meaning" comes from the mind, not the world. We superimpose our own mental q...

When we take sides, we polarize. One side fuels the other in a vortex of negative energy that makes each of us smaller, not larger. The heart contracts. Our very center is injected with the "three poisons" of hatred, pride, and ignorance. What we don't want to hear is this: there is a seed of truth on both sides. We need to listen for the seed of truth in our "enemy." Compassionate listening expands us. This is the power that dissolves vio lence before it arises. Power is in synthesis, not conflict. Power is the wider awareness that integrates mutual and complimentary truths from both sides. We don't even begin to realize why we incarnated on this earth-plane until we celebrate the dance of opposites. _______ Painting: the three poisons at the center of the Mandala of Yama, Lord of Death. They are Pride (a cock), Hatred (a snake), and Ignorance (a pig). They chase each others tales. Their motion drives the entire wheel of karma a...

Sometimes we fall in love with our anger - an exciting but dangerous romance. Anger tastes delicious for an instant, then turns sour with time. It flashes like lightning, then vanishes - wild, energizing, beautiful. But if we cling to the lightning bolt, we get burnt. To last beyond a flash, anger needs a story. Drop yesterday's anger by dropping the story around it. What remains is love. Love needs no story. In Tantric and Tibetan Buddhism, anger is actually a "wrathful deity" named Krodha, a matrix of potential energy that can be used for healing, and dissolving obstacles to evolution. The skill is to embrace the wrathful deity without grasping or resisting. Resistance is also a form of clinging. Kiss the anger, then let it go: Krodha will transform into a mighty angel of creativity. Yes, the daemonic is but a constricted form of the divine. For we honor not anger as anger, but the transformation of anger. What is useful and healing is the energy th...

Unthinkable that we might abandon the failed European concept of "the state." Unthinkable that we might let so-called "nations" and their borders dissolve. But in fact, it is already happening. Unthinkable that we might witness the extinction of the dinosaur, "federal government," drowning in a tar pool of bureaucracy, corruption, and waste. Unthinkable that we might dwell in harmony without national politicians and the oligarchs they serve, without world religions, without vast armies. Unthinkable that our civilization might spiral back to its most stable and creative structure: the sustainable bio-regional economy. But after all, "economy" comes from th e Greek words, ecos (home) and nomos (rule): the rule of the home. Thus economy by definition is LOCAL. That we might trust in local shamans, elders, artists, entrepreneurs, perhaps even in ourselves; that with boundless compassion and infinite presence we might find our kingd...

Vide Domine afflictionem: 'Behold, O Lord, our affliction.' In the observation of pain is healing - not through resisting, trying to change, or labeling our pain with thoughts, but through witnessing the affliction as energy, swept by breath. Let your silence invoke the Witness, the hollow glowing core who neither thinks, nor dreams, nor sleeps, but simply sees. Your very Being is a vigil. In awareness is compassion; in compassion, transformation. And what if this is the end, your death? Then yes, yes, even then! Embrace affliction with a pure naked beholding, and beholding itself will become the infinite light. By the English composer, William Byrd, this music is for deep meditation.

"Mantra" is a term often misused and misunderstood in our culture. Mantra means, literally, mind ("manas") vehicle ("tra"). Many think that a mantra is just a word repeated over and over in the mind, and that any word will do. But when we receive a living mantra from a Master, it is not just a word. It is an impulse from the boundless field of pure consciousness, the silent potency at the source of creation. The mantra carries our awareness back to the Creator. A living mantr a contains, in seed form, the cumulative power of countless enlightened beings, extending far back into the ancient now. A living mantra is a lineage. The art of mantra is not repetition or concentration. Repeating a word that we get from a book, or hear in the spiritual marketplace, makes the mind drowsy, and this drowsiness can be mistaken for "meditation." But a living mantra is imbued with shakti, awakened power, at the moment of initiation,...

All anger is really directed toward the self, a cry for our lost wholeness. We are only outraged by one thing: that Life ever became separate from itself. Anger is an intensified form of love, seeking restoration. The end of anger is not to attack the enemy, but to melt into that wholeness which was always here, underlying the appearances, the cracks on the mirror. Moving reflection of moon on forest pool. The ripples are not deep. They give texture to the stillness. Moon is full, even if the image seems broken. Full moon helps us return to our nature, which is peace. Feel fresh cool beams of moonlight permeate each cell of your body, calming the agitated intellect, melting away past and future, softening intuition beyond thought. In Vedic science, there is a connection between the moon and the mind. The moon's fullness re-minds us, we are waves of beauty playing in the womb of silence. Om Shantih Shantih Shantih.

"When all your desires are distilled, you will cast just two votes: to love more, and be happy." ~Hafiz "Laugh, sing, dance, and meditate," says an ancient Sanskrit proverb, which is not only my spiritual path but my politics. "That," one might say, "is highly irresponsible!" But lasting political change is the fruit of love, not resistance. It is our joy, not our anger, that changes our adversary's heart. Instead of street marches, hold street dances! Don't gather to protest, gather to sing! Create thunder through the silence of your meditation. Collect your softest breaths into honey; drip it upon lips parched by curses. In these disturbing times, so many do not believe they have permission to be joyful. They think they must save the whole earth , and wash the nation clean, before they can even smile. But the deepest sign of Spirit is repose, innocence centered in the midst of turmoil, offering the radiance of a new creati...

~ "But how will meditation and the development of "consciousness" help us solve the critical problems that face our society, our economy, our environment?" ~ The real solution to our economic, social, and environmental problems is not a new government or a new economic system, but a new state of consciousness. When people enliven their perceptions through meditation and yoga, they begin to experience how happy they can be just taking a breath, just opening an eye to the stars, just hearing a sparrow at dawn, just smelling the hyacinth in April. Not through amassing wealth, but through enlivening perception, we become rich, owning little. We become content, desiring less. We are at peace with ourselves, and so with others. Through this transformation of the heart, cravings vanish, and with them the need to exploit, to do violence, to steal, to acquire in a large house, an energy-guzzling car, or an elaborate wardrobe, to seek constant sexual stimulati...

"One who expects nothing enjoys everything." (Francis of Assisi) What is Salvation if I cannot save my own awareness? What is Prayer if I cannot meet the Spirit in this breath? Where is Heaven if I cannot feel it in the soles of my feet? The present moment is not a vanishing point between the past and the future. The present moment is a vast and radiant kingdom, where the boundaries of past and future dissolve like shadows at dawn. Can you rest in the bounty of not-seeking? This wealth is always available. Let your breathing be the gesture of Grace. Let your mind be the flowering of Now. This is the new way to solve every problem... We have come to the end of a phase in human evolution. This phase brought us the scientific method, deductive reasoning, the teleological theology of Christianity: all attempts to impose an ideal future on the present moment, to change the world according to a plan. We need not abandon these tools when they are useful for specific immed...

Through the alchemy of meditation, consciousness crystallizes until it is more solid than the object of consciousness. Then the subject outshines the object and the radiance of the Self is not lost in the experience of the world. The truth is, my world is only known through my state of consciousness. If I want to change the world I see, I must begin by changing the seer. More than any other agent of change, it is the quality of our awareness that changes the world. Christallize your consciousness.

Ask-me-Answers is a social media interview conducted by Marion Nasser, from Germany. I was honored to be asked to participate in one of her interviews... Marion : How is true greatness characterized in a human being? Fred : When we sense that something is 'great,' we cannot define it, but we feel it in our marrow. Even if that music, that painting, or that person who walks into the room is not well-known, we still feel the 'greatness.' It has nothing to do with fame or technical skill. It is a quality of depth. Depth of what? Depth of time, depth of stillness, and depth of silence. A great painting by Leonardo carries a subtle void between its particles, and that void is alive with ancient peace, stillness, the thunder of silence. And that same depth we feel in the silence between the words of Rumi, Basho, or Milton; or between the notes of great music. We feel the depth of 'greatness' not in what is there, but in what is not there. In a ...

Those who pretend to rule over us try to keep our minds in a constant state of political shock, economic anxiety, and fear of war, because when we are outraged, we are easy to manipulate. The best resistance is to remain centered in the joy of inner freedom, without projecting despair onto the mirror of the future. The revolution is to rest in the heart. The radical act is to be present. Feel the nearness of the Beloved in the warmth of anahata, the space in your chest w here music arises from a silent unstruck bell. Where you are most hollow, you are most full. That warmth is unfathomably gentle, yet its power is mightier than all the mind's strategies for self-protection. Use this tenderness to heal some small creature right beside you, and you will heal the earth. Love is local, but its breath sweeps the stars. (Collage with my words by Rashani Réa )