Being Heart Centered

Résumé du livre

This book is a personal journey into observing and interpreting our very human experience of being. It takes a deep dive into the Ontology of Language, how our use of language shapes what is possible to experience, from Biology, in how we interpret, to re-write our relationship with "what is so", placing the observer (you) as shaping the observed (reality).From the vantage point of the study of being, we have nothing to fix. In fact, focusing on our shortcomings simply makes them stronger. By observing our patterns, our compulsive reactivity, and the blind beliefs we impose on ourselves and others, we have a choice to simply practice new ways of being.A question, if you could be any way you could imagine being, what way of being would you choose?A significant part of the book points to practices and the embodiment of learning and being as opposed to the collection of intellectual distinctions (a head centered existence).Drawn from source material that forms the foundation of personal transformational work now taking place across the globe, the objective of this book is simple (even though the material is deeply confrontive to conventional thought), and it has a simple purpose.To enable you to gather with friends and practice the kind of transformational work that is only available in intensive coursework, in your own home. Indeed, regular practice is what is needed to ground the fundamentally, different perspectives offered.Drawn from thirty years of study, and eight years of actual practice in homes in Southern California, in weekly "Onto Circle" meetings, the distinctions are offered in a deeply human, subjective way.Excerpt:Perfection is a term (linguistic distinction) commonly used to describe an ideal or absolute state. Perfection is generally defined as being complete and flawless.The word has been used in other ways, in mathematics there is a concept of a perfect number. In biology and physics the word perfect can mean a property of an object, such as being perfectly malleable in that it does not lose its ability to be molded as it is molded. In this moment, I am choosing to use the general definition, perfect as being complete and flawless.Perfect, in this context, is an assessment made by an observer to describe an object, person, concept or state of being. As with any assessment, perfect is observed and interpreted by each person differently, based on what each person has to interpret with: i.e. personal history, language (vocabulary), significant life events, values, recent experiences, state of nutrition, etc. The issue with perfection is the issue with any ideal, we discover it (or declare it) in the moment, but over time our perspective changes, and when our perspective changes, the criteria for evaluating perfection also changes.What was perfect in one moment of time, changes when viewed from a more informed or different perspective later.An example of how this works can be observed in how we relate to mistakes, another assessment made by an observer.We never make a mistake when we make a mistake; we determine an action (or inaction) to be a mistake from the perspective of the future.Being perfect is similar, when we continually assess ourselves, others or the world from the perspective of the future. When this is done compulsively, such as from reactivity, it is called perfectionism. Being a perfectionist means that our actions of today will forever be subject to review, critique and analysis based upon the standards we create tomorrow. Our entire lives will therefore be spent in a race to become good enough to stand up to the full power of hindsight.Think about it, the more we strive for perfection and the higher and higher we set the standards of performance (based on our ability to look back and see what we could have or should have done), the more we fall short. This sets us up to use our "failure" as evidence to beat ourselves up, giving ourselves .....