Three Gates For “Little Stevie”

BREATHE!

I’m working with Dr. Carl Totton of the Taoist Institute in Burbank, and our weekly calls are helping me clear out some old emotional/spiritual garbage, in preparation for one hell of a year of work. I’ll be working through some stuff here, but wanted to make it clear that some of these thoughts are his.

Working through them makes them mine.

So the notion of “undivided” thought, non-dualistic thought, is germane to the question of Awakening as an adult human being. But the roots are in the Childhood self. And an assignment I was given (or a suggestion made) is to, every morning and night, envision my child self and tell him that I love him, and am proud of him.

The age of that kid is usually around eight, but the “undivided” age might we closer to five, when I entered kindergarten and first began a real life outside my home. And I asked myself a question about the Three Gates:

What might have been better in my life had I been given them, and committed to them, at a younger age?

“Is it True? Is it Kind? Is it Useful?”

I’d have done better in school.

I wouldn’t have been bullied as much.

There were small, casual cruelties I engaged in I would have avoided.

I’d not have been as driven by fear.

I’d have been a better son.