The Wise Man's Wife

Meet my dear friend, Diana Lorence. The first time I met Diana several years ago, she was in the middle of a long period of silence. As you can imagine, we got along great from the start. We had been invited to meet her and her husband by good friends on whose property they lived. Thus we  became part of an ongoing philosophical inquiry into the deeper truths of life, lead by her Gentleman Philosopher husband, Michael. 

Of course, someone like me, highly inclined to skip the pursuit of logic and reason in order to go straight into silence and meditation, would end up in a philosophical inquiry gathering. Only someone like Michael and Diana would be able to hold me there, as their disciplined pursuit of reason had resulted in humility rather than the arrogance usually encountered in philosophical circles. Also, Michael allowed all reason and logic to come to its logical conclusion of silence whenever the point of divine paradox was reached. There were many beautiful periods of deep, knowing silences of true and peaceful "don't know" moments created by our conversations. Much like a beautiful vase created by the highest principles of pottery serves to frame the empty space inside, these conversations, created with the help of  the highest forms of Western thought, served to frame our silences. 

The Lorences reside in a small, sacred dwelling in the Northern California mountains. For years they have lived mostly in retreat from the world in order to free themselves to pursue a life of virtue and inquiry. With Diana asking the questions, and Michael devoted to utmost truth and disciplined philosophical reasoning, they spend their days in contemplation, and living their highest truth as they discover it. This is both a joyful and very difficult path, as all true paths are.

The fruit of their labor has been of great benefit and inspiration to all the people whose lives they have touched, both by their life choices and during their fireside conversations with friends. Up until recently it was mostly Michael who gently guided these meetings and conversations. Suddenly, people wanted to hear what "The Wise Man's Wife" had to say, and that is how she received her name... and, how Michael suddenly was referred to as "The Wise Man". Amusing "titles" in today's world, and yet highly appropriate for these two wonderful, and truly wise people. 

The new website that has been created for "The Wise Man's Wife" gives a surprisingly accurate flavor of their spirit and intention, now expressed in a whole new way by Diana in her own meetings. Many people from all over the world and from all kinds of different backgrounds are drawn to her. Especially women were interested to hear her views,  wanting to relate to her experience of a life lived with such pure intention - until their husbands naturally felt drawn to the same talks. 


A door has been opened for the world to find her and partake of her light and love. Don't miss this beautiful and graceful wife of a wise man. Here is the website with contact information as well as  many more photos, comments, and stories of how people have been touched and inspired. Don't be surprised if the website itself gives you a sense of instantly feeling connected with something true and essential to human well being. 

Hope?

Q: Is there any hope that the world or that mankind will find a way to live on this planet without destroying itself?

MM: Hope is in the mind. The mind and its root, is the cause of all greed. Greed leads to over-consumption, fear, war, waste, lack of compassion. The first thing to master and transcend is one's own mind. Forget hope and forget despair. Allow yourself to be in peace, and in not-knowing. Then your actions or your non-action will be natural and beneficial, whether on a small,  or on a large scale.

I Like My Distractions

Q: I like my distractions - my wife, my kids, my work, my hobbies. Actually I am rather happy unless I think about the stuff you talk about and think I ought to seek something else. Eternal happiness eludes me, quite frankly.

MM: Then you are already wise.

Why Distraction?

Q: You say the we seek re-union through distraction. I don't understand that.

MM: We become separated from infinite peace and serenity, and all-knowing oneness through our senses, in other words through being in our bodies, and consequently through our mind. We are not our bodies , or mind - there is much more - or maybe I should say - much, much less to us than meets the eye. We cannot imagine who or what we truly are beyond our physical experience of ourselves. Therefore we seek happiness through what we think will make us happy, but this is all based on what we think will satisfy us.

By that we usually mean what satisfies us in some form through our senses. Health, wealth, pleasure, power - you name it - but none of it will work for long because it can never take us to our original, and eternal, state. That state only needs to be rediscovered by taking away everything that is of body or mind. That is who we are beyond doubt, time, space, or experience.

It sounds mysterious and it is. Yet it is the most natural of all. You could say that our true nature is God. That is re-union.

Distraction

Q: I feel distracted by so many things and it does not leave me much time for relaxing and meditation. Somehow, even though I know I should, I don't seem to be able to change it.


MM: Regarding distraction - we seek re-union and mistake many things as ways to get there - even if it is just people we don't want to say "No" to out of fear of losing them - until our eyes open...

I found this on Wikipedia of all places. Sometimes you just have to wait until you can handle the truth. Then change is automatic and not something "you do", but something that naturally happens in your life.

A striking example of Vipashyana was provided by a student of mine in her early twenties who had been meditating for some time. Since her late teens, she had been a devotee of "raves," dance parties held at enormous warehouses in our area, attended by literally thousands of young people. Well-known bands are engaged, the music is loud, alcohol and drugs are sometimes consumed, and the dancing goes on until dawn. The atmosphere is said to be usually "mellow" and fun, and the young folks are drawn back to the parties again and again. My student was attending a rave one Saturday night and, for no apparent reason, wanted to feel the cool, the space, and the silence of the night. She left the huge warehouse where the party was happening and walked across an adjacent field onto a a hillock beyond. Turning around, she looked at the building, throbbing with music and blazing with light, packed as it was by several thousand ravers. Suddenly, without warning, it was as if her eyes were opened for the first time and she "saw" the party--so she reported--in all its naked reality. She saw the tremendous desperation of the people inside, their loneliness and hunger, how they had all come there seeking to escape from their suffering. She saw how they had all become predators, preying upon one another, in a fruitless search for happiness. It was an endless game in which, she too, was involved. Overcome by the sorrow and hopelessness of the situation, she broke down and wept. She came to talk to me because, as she said, this experience had shown her something not only about raves, but about life in general, about the many things people do out of their own pain and misery. She told me that she felt, for the first time, the meaning of suffering. She saw her experience as a direct product of her meditation practice and her commitment to her spiritual path. Her experience made her realize, again for the first time, that her meditation was the one anchor in her life and that the spiritual journey she had undertaken was about having her eyes opened, in perhaps shocking and painful ways, to the underpinnings of the seemingly normal, everyday world.

I Love My Body

Q: I love my body - except for a few parts I'd improve if I could. But mostly I am rather vain and pleased and it gives me a lot of power to be beautiful. Otherwise I consider myself a spiritual person, but I worry about being so happy about how I look and the time I even spend to make myself look even better with make-up and clothes. Should I fight this and try to overcome this to be a better person?

MM: If you try to fight it, it becomes stronger. You will become vain about being un-vain. You will become vain about your "inner beauty". Just notice the tension in yourself when you are showing off your beauty or standing in front of the mirror trying to make yourself even more beautiful and just relax this particular tension. There is beauty there today, which will disappear in old age - you need to find the knack how to not identify with the beauty today, and the ugliness of tomorrow in old age. Otherwise you have no freedom.

Q: But how do you do that?

MM: Look at your first statement; "I love my body". In a way you are lucky, as most people will say "I hate my body". Both are equally silly tough. Who loves who? Who is it who can say I love or hate - "my" body, or somebody, for that matter?

Is it the body itself that you think is "you". This "I" that the ocean, for example, does not have. The ocean would never say "I hate, or love, my waves". This "I" is foolishness. Without "I", there is beauty or ugliness, but you are free. Free from "I", and all that comes with it - the expectations of beauty and the disappointments of ugliness.

Q: But then, if you tell me that way I am then free, who is free versus un-free?

MM: Precisely!!!

Q: There is no one there!?

MM: ... and there is no "there" there either :-)

Greed

Q: MeditationMom, what exactly is greed and why is it considered unspiritual?

MM: It is just a tension. Greed enters your heart through the eyes. You see something and you want it - or really, really don't want it - which is reverse greed - aversion and fear. There isn't anything more wrong with greed than with any other kind of tension. There are only two ways to relieve the tension of greed. One is to "get what you want", and the other is simply to relax and let go of what you think you want. You have to let go of thinking and all the attachments that feed greed. This can be surprisingly difficult even for typically non-greedy people in certain circumstances.

The first way to get rid of greed - achieving what you wanted -  is temporary and you will only want the next thing once you get what you wanted, so it doesn't really get rid of greed.  The other is in your control and can be permanent if you chose. Once you can relax greed, you can also "turn it on" at will when you need to compete with another person for resources, or just for fun and games - like any sport or game. People channel their greed and violence into sports and games and there also learn that detachment leads to better outcomes.

The first way is the way of the world and highly useful in many instances, like getting food and shelter, or winning a game. It becomes "evil"- in the sense that it makes other people afraid - depending on the lengths you are willing to go to get what you want. And it becomes plain silly when you want silly things like garden gnomes or Warhol paintings and are tempted to steal from your neighbor's house, or if you decide to cheat at golf. Greed itself is natural - how you go about relieving that tension is what makes it good or evil in your or other people's eyes. Whether you are the master, or it is master over you, is what makes it "spiritual" or "unspiritual".

Greed and fear are closely linked - and almost the same thing. Like night and day they melt into each other. Greed and fear are the tug of war of the mind, while a peaceful mind feels no such thing as fear or greed. "Spiritual" simply means "peaceful mind" - a peaceful mind is a mind grounded in the non-material. You can act on your own behalf against others in the material world with a perfectly peaceful mind. Such a person rejoices in what others gain as much as in their own gain, while the truly fearful and greedy are very much troubled by other people's good fortune.

Q: If greed enters the mind through the eyes, does that mean blind people are never greedy?

MM: No. It also enters through hearing, touching, smelling...there are many doors for greed to enter. The magic phrase to hold in one's mind to trick greed is "less is more" and "loss is gain" and then learn and know that it is true. Even when you lose your life.

Q: Even when you lose your life? How can that be a good thing?

MM: I didn't say it is a good thing. If someone steals something from you it also is not a good thing. But your distress can be instantly relieved if you remind yourself that less is more and loss is gain. Now you are free from all that worry about someone stealing from you, or your life being threatened or lost. Knowing that anything in the material world ultimately has no value at all - even your life - is the key to happiness and serenity here on this earth.

Q: Yes, but in the meantime we have to survive and often fight with others for resources.

MM: Yes and No. Jesus simply decided to stop all that and see what happens. It ended in him getting crucified, of course. He was very sure of the truth and trusted it - although with some difficulty during the crucifixion ("why have you forsaken me"). But in the end, he died a free man. ("Forgive them, for they do not know what they do.")

Q: Jesus was different and unique, though. It's not that you or I could say that, if someone were to murder us or one of our children.

MM: That is just an excuse, and not the truth. We are all able. Jesus was also "only human" when it came to being rather unhappy and uncomfortable, to say the least, at being crucified.

Q: Doesn't that kind of thinking makes many Christians just doormats for abusive people.

MM: Yes, Jesus was the ultimate doormat. As far as survival goes it is better to be the torturer than the tortured. As far as eternal life is concerned, though, you will not know it unless you are willing to give up what you have. All of it. Your possessions, you opinions, your religion, your philosophies, your loved ones, your own life.

Now, don't start giving it all away, leave your family, or kill yourself to get into heaven. That is greed in disguise. Just don't concern yourself with all these things - having and not having, getting and not getting, losing and keeping - but abide in truth and serenity. It is a choice you make, more than anything else.

Q: That makes me think of Bernie Madoff and all of his victims. Are you saying they can benefit from having everything stolen from them?

MM: We have no control over thieves and robbers. When you get robbed in life - of your money or your dignity - it is completely up to you whether you benefit from it or suffer from it. You do have control over that. The root cause of all suffering is your mind. You can turn lead into gold, suffering and pain into joy and freedom, but you cannot stop thieves.

Q: That's sounds like thieves somehow get off the hook. The thought of Bernie Madoff in his cell contemplating that he may have benefitted his victims "if they only turn it around" in their heads... I don't know...doesn't work for me. I am more the revenge type of guy who would like to see him hanging from the nearest tree.

MM: I have seen some very sweet old ladies on TV who "couldn't hurt a fly" who feel very strongly - like you - that he deserves the death penalty for the amount of suffering he has caused. It just proves that all of us are murderers if provoked. Stealing pales in comparison to murder.