Three Gates, Three Centers, 1% Per Week

Of all the things I’ve taught, the Three Gates pops up most often on other people’s threads. Of all the things that have created joy, success, and happiness in the lives of the masters, the interaction of Body, Heart, and Head have been most instructional. Three Gates, Three Centers.

Start with the assumption that all animals seek to avoid pain and gain pleasure, such that the meaning of life is to seek joy. The less evolved version of this would be “to avoid pain.”

To do this, to avoid pain AND seek joy, we need success in three arenas minimum: Health, love, and career. Do a little research: how many complaints do you see on social media that don’t relate to one of these three? Try just a little, and you can hook 80% of complaints about life into one of these three:

1. Health-fitness. This covers energy, aliveness, feeling good in your body, being able to enjoy physical activities, and being grounded in the world. Belly brain gives us access to our instinct.
2. Love. Of self, and others. Empathy. Positive emotional flow. This could be seen as the most important of all, and I wouldn’t argue, so long as you are grounded in the physical. Heart center gives us connection to our precious emotions.
3. Career. Hunting and gathering. Money. “Success” in worldly things. In the arenas in which money works, nothing works like money. It is the currency of the adult world, just as hugs are probably the currency of the “child” self.