Nearly 50 years passed. Life unfolded. There were more teachers, more retreats, more questions, more practices. There were successes and failures, insights and blind alleys.
Then, not long ago, the family and I were vacationing on Tybee Island, just off the coast of Savannah, Ga. On the way from the airport to our cottage, we picked up a nail in one of the tires and found ourselves in a tire shop waiting for it to be repaired. I stood outside the tire bays reminiscing about my summer in the tire shop, watching the men work on other cars. It was nostalgic. It also felt strangely synchronistic, but I did not know why.
A few days into the vacation, while walking alone on the beach at sunrise, I understood why. For me, these sunrise walks were a kind of joyful ritual. The ocean was quiet, and my mind followed suit while my heart was joyfully full of the sunrise’s beauty. That morning, without warning or cause, I heard in my mind a declarative voice say to me with extraordinary clarity:
Everything you needed to know, you learned in the tire shop.
I stopped walking. I was stunned. I knew it to be true.
Of course, the five decades between the tire shop and that beach would bring extraordinary teachers, profound friendships, years of contemplative practice, Leadership Circle, Unity Academy, and a lifelong exploration of leadership, human development, and the world's wisdom traditions. But in that moment, I understood something I had never seen before. The seeds had all been planted during that remarkable summer. In a tire shop, no less!
Only while creating Unity Academy did I finally recognize what had actually happened that summer. Without knowing it, I had stumbled into two profound awakening practices that have appeared, in different forms, throughout many of the world's wisdom traditions.
The first was an awareness practice. By returning again and again to the words, "It is as it is. Who is there to ask for more?" unbeknown to me, my attention was quietly pointed toward Consciousness Itself. I had no language for that at 18, but looking back, I can see that I was learning to rest in the deepest level of Being. Resting in transcendent Unity, Oneness, Emptiness, Wholeness. Though I would not have understood those words then, not for another 40 to 50 years.
The second was a heart and energy practice. Simply allowing my attention to settle in the heart awakened something I could never have imagined. Joy arose for no apparent reason. The overflow of joy naturally became love. The subtle (yet powerful) energy of loving joy began to circulate through my body until the body was in a state of bliss. And then, the overflow of joy and love effortlessly became presence and connection. In that state of presence, there was nothing to do, no striving to make something happen, and no one to be. All just naturally emerged.
Without realizing it, I had stumbled into two complementary practices that have guided contemplatives for centuries. I wasn't trying to awaken, I was simply experimenting. Life, however, knew exactly what it was doing.
Much later, I came to appreciate a simple principle: Energy follows attention.
Where we consistently place our attention profoundly shapes our experience. Attention is not merely something we use to observe life. It is one of the primary ways life transforms us. Without realizing it, I had discovered that directing attention toward Awareness Itself while simultaneously allowing attention to rest in the heart establishes a remarkably powerful practice for awakening. The experience came decades before the understanding. |
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