Posts from — July 2007

Getting ready to leave Boulder and drive several hours north to Shambhala Mountain Center. Will be on meditation retreat until Aug 2. I wish it was longer. Very much so. I have enough clothes and snacks to last several months, that’s for sure. It feels like such a departure from everything ordinary that I try to soothe myself with outfit options and my favorite kind of black tea. But nothing can really protect you from the joy and sadness of being exactly who you are. They’re both equally uncomfortable. So here we go.

will be away july 22-aug 1 at shambhala mountain center. will be on meditation retreat with my teacher, sakyong mipham rinpoche. i’m so ridiculously excited and happy. may try to blog from there, but only intermittently if at all. it sounds crazy to say that involving yourself in spiritual practice from 7a to 9p every day for a few weeks is the most fun thing a person can do, but it is. there is only one thing more fun and that’s doing so for a few months.

GTD is an amazing system for multi-leveled personal organization. There are three things I love about it:

It’s enormously intelligent
It shamelessly satisfies the inner geek
It produces spiritual benefits

It’s this last one that is so interesting. The system brings a sense of order, pleasure, and quietude– the intelligence that famously comes forth from disciplined use of GTD. This is a big deal… Perhaps it explains why we (okay, I) can spend hours looking at other people’s systems on Flickr.

The very first time I put the system into full play (like 10 years ago via a cassette that came with my now-forgotten Time Design), I expected to feel good about getting my stuff in order and whatnot, but I had no idea I’d be all blissed out from the process. I left my office, desk clean, inbox empty, Brother labeler in a dust heap,and felt unbelievably lighthearted and Ready For Anything. Probably most GTD-ers know this feeling.

When I became a full-time writer, however, I found that the system didn’t work as well as when I was a Marketing VP and such. Yet the writing projects required management and had deadlines just like a regular job. I would add “new book about Buddhism” or “O Magazine article” to my Projects, but when it came to Next Actions, I couldn’t make it work. I tried to add “write chapter on the Four Noble Truths” or “comprehend the true meaning of fearlessness” to my Next Actions, but this didn’t quite get it. For stuff like “read article about the nature of mind” or “research statistics on anxiety”, it still worked. The only thing I couldn’t figure out was when and how to be quiet and creative. I tried reserving the first half of the day for creative stuff and the second half for e-mails and meetings. But the mind of writing doesn’t mix well with the mind of administration. Yes, yes, I read “The War of Art” but still found that I couldn’t just flick a switch and get creative. Blaming this on “resistance” was interesting, but not helpful. When I overly plotted, outlined, or anticipated, the wrong mind was in charge. I’d schedule (and totally show up for) “writing time” 8-11 every day, but sometimes I could find the groove and sometimes I couldn’t. Then when I was supposed to be returning calls, a better word choice for something would hit me and I’d feel compelled to pay attention. I once heard Jerry Seinfeld say in an interview that bringing an episode to screen was like racing to carry an egg in a teaspoon over the finish line. This is a good metaphor for any creative project. It’s always precarious and you can’t take your eye off it. What to do?

You don’t have to be a writer to know what I’m talking about, you just have to be someone with a heart and soul who is curious about being a human. We all have things we feel driven toward that we can’t quite justify, like cultivating patience or learning Spanish. They require focus, creativity, and unrestricted mind space.How and when do these things get factored in?

Here are 3 things that help me:

1. Meditation practice.
Spending time observing (but not reacting to) my thoughts taught me that I could choose where to place my attention.

2. Three definites and two maybes. I read somewhere that someone writes down the 5 most important things to do that day. If he can do 3, he considers it a good day. I just go straight for the 3 and list 2 alternates in case I rock my world early in the day. Invariably, those 3 were about my core priorities.

3. Keep a separate self-development list and include it in the weekly review.
Each week, I look at this list but not for the purpose of determining next actions. On it are things like “write another book” and “try to become enlightened.” (Just kidding.) Only concrete stuff like “draft acknowledgments” (the best part about writing a book) and “e-mail editor re jacket copy” go on my Projects or Next Actions lists. But for the self-development priorities, instead of thinking ahead, I think back. I remind myself why those things are on the list in the first place. I re-experience the moment of inspiration or insight that led me to put each thing on the list. I remember how much genuine enjoyment I get from living up to my commitment to myself. I keep in mind that, eventually, habit will always trump lethargy.* Each week, I re-anchor my mind in who I really am and why I’m really doing all this.

Together, these 3 steps help me hold my mind steady and no matter how many times it is drawn away, to return it to what I really value. Then nature takes care of the rest.

*The ideas in #3 are adapted from the Buddhist definition of laziness. It describes three kinds:

Regular (no explanation needed)
Becoming Discouraged (considered a form of laziness because you’ve forgotten the sanity behind your aspirations)
Being too busy (which means you’ve arranged your schedule to leave out yourself)

There are four antidotes:
Trust
Aspiration
Exertion
Pliancy (self-existing momentum)

Wrote this for The Worst Horse, a great, excellent site where dharma meets pop and vice versa:

Skillfully Savvy:
Susan Piver’s 8 Points for Selling the Dharma Without Selling It Out
We who work in the world of spirituality (or want to bring spirituality into the world of work) often think that if you focus too much on the quality of materials and packaging you use, you’re a shallow cretin trying to sell out the dharma—and that if you don’t, it means you’re a serious student. We think the choices are: dumb it down or keep it real because only a select few can understand anyway. So forget about all those other people. I swear I’ve known people who really believe that these are the choices. But it’s really far more interesting and complex than this. In fact, if you want to appeal to the mainstream without dumbing anything down, you totally can. Here are some guidelines to contemplate.

1. Looks matter.
When offering a spiritual teaching, the first step is to create confidence in the mind of the listener/reader. High quality materials and production values are the opening salvo. Making certain that all the details are right—not in a snobby way, but out of respect—is the first step in instilling this confidence. Then people can relax and open up. So paying attention to packaging is important and kind.

2. Confidence is justifiable when something real is offered.
Something real is that which has been proven useful by millions of people over thousands of years—and/or that you yourself know to be true through your own experience.

3. Intention is the alpha and omega of strategy.
Once I was talking to my meditation teacher about whether to pursue a particular project. I didn’t really believe in it, but I needed the money. What was the right thing to do? “Examine your intention,” he said. “If your intention is good, then it doesn’t matter whether the result manifests in the heaven realm or the hell realm.” Well that sort of blew my mind. You mean that the whole chain of events will purify karma if the intention is good, but the purification may or may not look like “success?” I think so. Therefore right intention can be the ground, the path, and the fruition. At least this is my interpretation.

4. Discriminating Wisdom is good.
The other day I was talking with some people about a good way to promote a new book from an esteemed spiritual teacher. There was an opportunity to promote his work on a website that featured bestselling authors. Half the people in the group wanted to move forward; they thought that associating this teacher with bestselling authors was good. But these particular bestselling authors, it so happened, were quite cheesy.

There are bestsellers that are powerfully good and bestsellers that are powerfully manipulative. Usually we count on sales figures to tell us which is which. Big sales=manipulative, no sales= good. But it can just as easily work the other way around. Without a strong personal sense of what is helpful and what propagates confusion, you can’t tell. Discriminating wisdom is the key.

5. Don’t make bad business decisions for spiritual reasons.
Don’t think that just because it’s popular it’s no good. Look a little closer. Don’t think that success=sellout. In my mind, this view is actually an act of aggression. You’re trying to contain the teachings in a way that makes you feel comfortable.

6. Don’t make bad spiritual decisions for business reasons.
Don’t think that you have to pull back on your commitment to the teachings in order to make money, no matter what crazy justifications you come up with. My favorites are along the lines of “well if we start out by telling people they’re all going to die, they won’t by the book so I’ll bury that or disguise it.” Things along these lines lead to trouble.

7. When working with others, learn the difference between honesty and idiot honesty.
Just as idiot compassion (thinking you have to be nice all the time) obscures genuine compassion (acting to benefit others from a position of wakefulness), idiot honesty (saying whatever you think whenever you want) gets in the way of honesty as upaya, as skillful means.

8. When a project is in play, learn to read the signs; strategy doesn’t come from within, it forms around.
When your project moves out of the idea stage and into the manifestation stage, things change. The idea begins to magnetize people, coincidences, opportunities, reactions, and non-reactions. It’s important to take all these into account and modify the original idea, as needed. Not that you modify the message or content, but you tailor its presentation, sequencing, and timing. If the intention behind these modifications is to make the final product of better use (not purely to rake in more $$), it will be okay. The line of influence between form and content runs in two directions.