"A New Earth" Webinar

The Eckhart Tolle/Oprah Winfrey webinar exploring each chapter in depth of "A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life's Purpose" has deepened my awareness and practice of Mindfulness, a spiritual discipline I've loved for many years.

The webinar is a little over 1/2 done and each week, several million more people are downloading and streaming it. People call in and ask Oprah and Eckhart great questions about the concepts in the book. It's a great pleasure to watch Eckart Tolle teach the spiritual principles calmly and peacefully and when he becomes excited by a certain concept, he half chuckles and giggles, which is fun to watch!

I went to my Oral Surgeon today for an implant, carrying "A New Earth" under my arm. The surgeon immediately made a comment about the book and the webinar on Oprah.com.

So we discussed the ideas in the book. What I noticed is that he "got it." He knew exactly what I was talking about when I said that the book is about how to live mindfully, consciously and in the Now. When I said the Egoic Mind can be eradicated by present moment living, the surgeon went into a rant about rude behavior, unkind people and violence in American Society.

I said, Yes but you don't need to react to the chaos. Inner peaceful presence is always available for your pleasure and inward sense of solace.

I wondered if he was referring to a client who was having a melt down in the waiting room as I was led back to my exam room. She insisted that the office did not call her that morning to tell her about her rescheduled appointment. The woman was angry, tense and had the look of someone who was just about to commit a violent act right there in the waiting room.

The other people there looked anxious as she kept yelling at the receptionist.

Eckhart Tolle would call this woman's negative energy her "pain body."

As we reacted negatively to her energy, our own pain body was triggered.

The pain body is the energy field of old emotions that live in almost every human being. The pain body is not just individual in nature. It accounts for all the suffering of collective humanity as in the case of rape, pillage, tribal warfare, wars, slavery and genocide.

The pain body is an addiction to unhappiness.

So there it was in the waiting room today: A living breathing pain body that triggered everyone else's pain body to react, to feel better than, to judge this woman and even to use her as an example as to why people in today's society are so screwed up.

Since so few of us like going to the Dentist let alone an Oral Surgeon, the pain body is perhaps more easily triggered in places such as these.

This is a beautiful example of an activated pain body, but every day we can find at least one. The beauty is found when reaction ceases, and we become the Compassionate Presence or witness who really is a spark of our own divinity.

True happiness arises out of present moment attunement and is always available as soon as we allow it!

I loved the way Tolle describes dogs: as Guardians of Being.

As I watched and absorbed the webinar, I simultaneously took care of my dog Mukunda, as he recovered from major surgery, the removal of 3 large cysts: 1 from the left side and 2 from the right.

Both of my dogs, Mukunda and Ulysses, like it best when I'm focused on their antics, when I hang out with them exclusively, when I walk with them, throw balls for them, swim in the river and ocean with them, and stroke, brush and tell them how much I love them.

When I absorb myself in cyberspace, read a book or especially when I talk on the phone, Mukunda barks excitedly, reminding me to resume my love affair with him.

The world tells me these dogs are spoiled. But I know that they are telling me to Be Here Now, to look to them to best teach me exactly how to do this.

So I look to them to teach me how this is done.

And they have been my best teachers, counselors, companions and all around best pals.

I look to them.

I look up to them.

They are my Guardians of Being.

The waiting rooms of the world may always have unhappy people in them, people who still can absorb the truth that the present moment is exactly where their happiness is found, even if the Nowness is found in the waiting room of an Oral Surgeon.

I can't take my dogs there. But they will always be found in my heart, where ever I go, in the joy of the quiet mind.