A long and winding Dharma Journey - Part 1
memorable moments triggering the unfolding of transformational change
Part 1: a reporting of memorable spiritual moments that was written in January of 2023 and shared with family, friends and sangha at that time. It’s been resting quietly since then. It has been divided into two parts. Viewers are advised to scroll for headings that tweak their interest, take it in small bites, do a deep dive, or just ignore altogether. ib
Prologue
These are moments of direct spiritual, earthy or otherworldly experience that have stuck in memory. My purpose in recording these incidents as a witness is to gain greater clarity on the nature of what might be characterized as a long and winding dharma journey. Humble thanks are professed to Lama John Hoag for his sensitive and wise guidance on a diverse set of powerful Tibetan Buddhist meditation practices. Also, for his encouragement to use a witness style for the archival reporting below. Some may view this archival record as an ego trip, but it may be argued the ego of this sentient being has been emotionally trampled and physically punished on enough occasions and in enough depth to shatter ego’s enduring hold on conscious awareness.
May this witnessing serve to continue the dissolution of this being’s ego and foster the continuing development of skillful means, clarity and wisdom presence. Duality is reported herein, the subject and object of traditional perception, a report of self and other. May the archival witnessing of these experiences serve to begin the dissolution of that duality, as the light of awareness continues to emerge. An inherent thesis of this report is the value of unpredictable clues or hints for next steps in one’s life journey and the value of meditative practices for increasing awareness of such vital clues.
May all dharma practitioners and others sincerely motivated on a spiritual journey be ever mindful that wisdom presence is available to guide critical actions and decisions in a wide range of circumstances. May this wisdom ripen, mature and expand for the benefit of all sentient beings as the ripples of one life wave spread imperceptibly into the ocean of awareness.
— Irv Beiman January 23, 2022
A Child’s Beginning
In the early 1950’s, the young child attended Methodist church services with his mother and was directly exposed to the congregation’s chant of the Apostle’s Creed. Whenever he attended church services, he experienced a remarkable and unforgettable state of awareness during these chants. He didn’t grok the chant’s essential meaning, but his body/mind/spirit was imprinted with the experiential impact of several hundred people chanting in unison.
In mid to late 1950’s, he wandered alone as an innocent child on nearby virgin land that contained caves, wild flowers and animal life as well as a gurgling creek with crawdads and minnows, fed by an abandoned mine that had become an aquifer. As he wandered, he felt intuitive pulls to go in one direction or another. This guidance led him to many delightful discoveries. It imprinted him emotionally with the inherent value of an untarnished earth, as well as the value of sensing guidance from an invisible source.
A Series of Critical Incidents
Meditation Research
In the 1970’s, as a result of graduate training at the University of Illinois and serving on the clinical faculty at the University of Georgia, he identified himself as a rational cognitive behavioral psychologist focusing on stress management and treatment of anxiety-related problems. A grad student persuaded him to organize an extensive re- search project comparing Transcendental Meditation with behavioral methods (biofeedback, progressive relaxation) for chronic tension. The key finding was that self referred participants who entered TM training higher on a measure of Internal Locus of Control benefitted significantly more in managing their psycho-physiological re- sponse to stress.
In August of 1977, he presented the results of his team’s research on meditation for chronic tension at the First International Conference on Behavior Therapy at the 500th anniversary of the University of Uppsala, Sweden. Then he travelled to Denmark and Norway before returning to the US.
Brutal Sacrifice
In Denmark, he toured an archaeological Bronze Age site at Lejre, near Copenhagen. This was a radical Danish sociocultural experiment in Bronze Age living.
A powerful educational film began playing as he entered a barely furnished small cabin while wandering Lejre. The small cabin was empty except for one chair facing a movie screen. A projector was automatically triggered when he closed the entry door. The film explained how population growth around villages had led to significant deforestation and was contributing to climate change. This was his first encounter with climate change information. The film gave indications of what he would encounter while wandering the site. Hints of the ritual sacrifice were revealed through dancing flames in the film. The horses screamed. Drums beat to a primeval rhythm. He left the cabin with a new disturbing awareness.
His wandering of the site eventually took him to Lejre’s sacrificial bog before he knew the risks of entering a sacrificial charnel ground. He stood above the bog wondering whether it was okay to descend, but his curiosity pulled him down. The horse skins were shocking from a distance, but were they real? He slowly and carefully moved down a steep slope toward the nearest one. The horse’s head was still connected to the skin of its body draped diagonally over a long pole. There were multiple carcasses positioned in this manner. He wondered silently, “Did they really sacrifice these horses?” It seemed so. He said aloud, “Jeez, what brutal suffering!” He could feel disturbing energy emanating from the soggy ground that stabilized the poles. The grotesque skins and damp earth oozed the animals’ pain, fear, terror.
Who would dare to enter such a space? This wide eyed ignorant one was shocked by the mysterious violent intention that drove such brutal sacrifice. He would very soon be shocked again into a turbulent awakening. His rational consciousness would be seared wide open by light. He would be punished. Severely. Was he up to the Journey? Would he break from the many challenges? Could he withstand the darkness he would face? Could he learn how to use the light from his heart for protection? For healing?
Mysterious Troll Farm
A few days later, he drove quickly on a narrow winding country road toward the ferry’s departure point for Oslo. While driving he passed a bizarre attention grabbing site and screeched to a halt. He looked back over his left shoulder. “What is that? What are those things,” he asked his impatient partner who was urging him not to stop. She frowned stiffly as he said, “I’m gonna take a look.”
It was a troll farm, a site created by a troll-maker who had fashioned mysterious life-like creatures from driftwood, animal skins and antlers. The front yard of the retail shop presented a supernatural view of beings given apparent life by one who was guided by a mystical earth energy. The shop’s front door was locked, windows covered. He knocked on the shop front door several times. No answer. His partner insisted he leave. He resisted her efforts. The mysterious pull he felt was too strong. After he had been waiting for maybe twenty minutes, the door opened slightly and a small gray haired elderly women peeked out.
He entered with his reluctant partner behind him. After examining each troll available for sale, he carefully selected a small one along with an Icelandic wool blanket. The shopkeeper placed them in a sack. As they got into the car, his partner angrily threw the sack into the back seat. He immediately felt the negative impact of that act and scolded her, “Be careful! The troll is in there!”
Shocking White Light
After driving their cars onto the ferry, all passengers immediately descended below. The cacophony of Scandinavians downing copious amounts of alcohol below deck was stifling for him. He rose from his seat, saying, “We came here to see fjords, so I’m going back on deck.” His unhappy partner stayed below.
The weather was dismal. Heavy overhead clouds. Persistent drizzling rain. His deepening unhappiness with his life was consistent with the depressing weather. He walked slowly to the back of the ferry’s main deck to take advantage of the onboard vehicles blocking the wind as the ferry moved forward. This gave him a vantage point for visually examining the sheer fjord cliffs as the ferry progressed toward its destination. Still no sunshine. Only heavy dark clouds and rain.
After close to an hour in wind and rain, he began to feel uneasy, but why? He had never experienced fear in natural surroundings. The ferry glided smoothly through the cold northern Atlantic water. His increasing discomfort was unsettling, but he could not identify a rational cause. He looked around, saying aloud, “Why am I uncomfortable? What’s bothering me?” Eventually he noticed the ferry was headed straight toward a towering cliff that rose menacingly out of the water. “Why haven’t we turned?” He wondered aloud as his tension rapidly increased. Still the ferry moved inexorably forward.
Suddenly he felt a compelling urge to run straight toward what appeared to be the ferry’s looming collision with the fjord’s granite wall rising abruptly from the water. As he ran he pondered why the ferry had not veered toward a safer direction. An image of the pilot slumped over the ferry’s helm entered his mind. He wondered where the pilot’s cabin was located, but there was no time for him to search. As he continued to run for his life, an image of the ferry crashing into the fjord’s cliff entered his mind’s eye. He heard screams in his consciousness as he imagined passengers drowning helplessly in the cold icy water.
When his run reached his vehicle with the troll in the back seat, he could have almost extended his arm to touch the granite cliff. The ferry began turning sharply. As it turned to his left, he saw the dock for the first time. He was shocked to see a vertical beam of bright white light forty to fifty feet in diameter streaming straight down onto the center of the dock. He stared dumbfounded at the light, transfixed by an event that seemed impossible on such a dreary overcast rainy day in the late afternoon. Where did that light come from?
When he drove off the ferry onto a side road bordering the ocean, his senses were intensely heightened. Colors were vivid and bright. A few weeks later he began having psychic experiences, exited his first serious relationship, got into listening to jazz and was thrust onto an unfolding exploratory spiritual journey. His family, friends and fellow faculty members could not even begin to understand why and how he had changed so dramatically.
A Thousand Chanting and the Black Prophet
In 1978 a friend at the vegetarian restaurant in Athens, Georgia strongly encouraged him to attend a Ram Das event at the Omni in Atlanta. The ex Harvard psychologist who had become America’s charismatic folk guru delivered an appealing presentation on the nature of humanity’s spiritual journey. At the end he led over a thousand attendees in chanting aum for more than a half hour.
The powerful group vibration dissolved his rational mind, expanded his con- sciousness and rekindled his long dormant interest in chanting. He floated out of the auditorium and hailed a taxi for transportation to a friend’s house for the night. Instead of getting into the back seat, he chose the front seat. In response, the driver offered him a joint. They toked under a broken street light in dark deserted downtown Atlanta. He asked the driver, “What is that long stick next to your door?”
The driver turned to gaze into his eyes and said in a deep bass voice, “That, man, is my didgeridoo.” He had been a member of Isaac Haye’s global tour entourage and had acquired an authentic aboriginal didgeridoo in Australia. He asked, “You want me to play it?”
The driver transformed himself into a black prophet, explaining the meaning of each aboriginal painted band encircling the hollow wood instrument. He alternated between chanting his prophecy and blowing into his deeply resonant instrument. It was a rhythmic rap on the looming fiery and destructive future of humanity. The karmic truth of what he shared shattered the dharma wanderer’s rational veneer and innocent world view.
This intensified the psychologist’s anxiety about a hazardous future. Over the next several months, he was completely overwhelmed by the frequency and intensity of the disturbing information that came, unbidden, to him. An astounding variety of sources indicated there was vast danger ahead. He emotionally concluded the consistency of the message meant he had a mission to help save the earth, along with others who had begun riding that perilous wave.
World Symposium on Humanity and Another Bright Light
In 1979 he flew to Los Angeles to attend the World Symposium on Humanity. This seven day event involved a pioneering inter-continental audio-visual satellite connection. The most famous gurus, yogis, thought leaders and futurists travelled to Los Angeles, Toronto and London to be connected in a pioneering first for international communication. Each day was devoted to presentations and workshops organized around one of the seven chakras. There were unverified sitings of UFOs around the Pasadena site.
He experienced an explosion of consciousness from the staggering plethora of New Age information and spiritual practices presented daily. One night he unceasingly twirled himself into a moving trance while a live band played a continuous riff like the Grateful Dead. As the conference ended, a new friend offered to put him up for the night at her house in Topanga Canyon and take him to LAX the next morning. He went to sleep on her pull out sofa bed. In the middle of the night he was awakened by a startling bright white light streaming into the windows on all three sides of the room.
He was unable to move for the first few moments in a strange paralysis. As he sat up, bewildered by what was happening, his friend was coming down the stairs from her second floor bedroom and asked, “Are you alright?” He wondered what had just hap- pened and why she was asking. They didn’t talk about it that night or when she took him to the airport the next day.
A Halloween Acid Trip and Image of Jesus
In 1980 he joined an organizational consulting and leadership development firm led by the psychologist who had founded the Center for Creative Leadership and had exited that organization to found another consulting firm. He was thrust into organizational consulting and leadership development activities for which he felt completely unprepared.
During this period and for several years, he used focused tantric visualization during sexual activities in his second serious relationship. He celebrated his thirty fifth birthday on Halloween, aka All Hallows Eve. A friend had given him several tabs of Blue Angel LSD, and had advised him to stare into a mirror at his own face while tripping. After he had done this for a few minutes his facial image began to slowly oscillate from a standard positive image to its complementary negative image, like the old style camera film. Surprised by this vacillating perception, he continued staring. His facial image began to morph in visible stages while retaining his beard and basic facial structure. He seemed to be going deeper into prior lifetimes until he was shocked to recognize an image of Jesus. This further imprinted him with a savior role.
Reading for the Journey
In the late 1970’s he began reading voraciously. Essential principles for his dharma journey were provided by the first seven books that he read, along with multiple translations of the Tao te Ching.
- Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa. Psychic and other spectacular efffects of meditation are a trap that can often become ego food. Notice thoughts as they arise and return awareness to the breath.
- The Experience of Insight by Joseph Goldstein. Insight about the causes and conditions of dukha (suffering) is enabled by meditation. Notice thoughts and return awareness to the breath.
A series of five books authored by Ram Das:
- Be Here Now - Live in the present moment.
- Grist For The Mill - Our cultural conditioning and psychological baggage are
grist for the mill of awareness on the dharma journey.
- The Only Dance There Is - The dharma is a universal dance of life. We do our
own dance within that context and find the path. In so doing, we encounter and assimilate karmic lessons, thereby experiencing less suffering as our journey unfolds.
- Journey Of Awakening - A compendium of meditation techniques for deeper awakening to the dharma journey.
- The Miracle Of Love - The power of love for guidance on the dharma journey.
Healing Circle Lesson
He experienced a powerful demonstration of group healing in 1982. While working for the management consulting firm, he travelled to Washington DC for a business meeting with the firm’s marketing director. After the meeting, he wandered onto his hotel room balcony as they were preparing to return to Greensboro. He was shocked to see his colleague on her balcony picking up a bloody pigeon that looked quite sick. He yelled, “What are you doing? That’s a sick pigeon!”
“Yeah, I want to comfort it.”
“But it’s sick!”
“I know. It’ll be ok.”
As he drove them both back from DC, she began feeling unwell. He scolded her,
“I told you you shouldn’t have picked that bloody bird up.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she sighed and sank back in the seat.
Two days later, he was awakened by a phone call at one o’clock in the morning from the holistic body worker who was on staff at the firm. She told him their colleague was very sick in the hospital and might not make it through the night. She insisted he come to the hospital to participate in a healing circle.
He found the hospital room and was shocked to see his unconscious colleague’s body swollen to almost twice her normal size. She was very rapidly panting extremely shallow breaths. More than ten worried female friends were standing around her.
The body worker told him, “She’s going down rapidly. Respiration rate is more 50 breaths per minute. Her lungs and the rest of her body have filled with fluid. Temperature is above 104. Her immune system is shot. The doctors have no idea what’s wrong with her.” She paused and whispered, “They don’t think she will make it through the night.”
He replied, “I think it’s gotta be the bloody pigeon she picked up on our hotel balcony during our DC trip last week.”
Her eyes blazed her reply: “You should tell her doctors.”
He agreed, “I’ll write it up.”
She shifted the group into action, “It’s time. Let’s do it.”
The group formed into a circle and joined hands. Each woman offered a verbal prayer or healing visualization for their friend and colleague. They visualized her in the center of the circle surrounded by light as each member of the group expressed loving intention for her healing and wellness. After everyone present had spoken they shifted into silence, still holding hands, sending their personal healing energy. In those moments there was no time. Only an intense healing vibe was present. As the group became weary, the vibe faded. Gradually everyone hugged, said their goodbyes and left. He was surprised at the caring the women demonstrated. He was struck by the depth of feeling they had for their friend.
Later that day, he got another call, “She made it through the night! The doctors still don’t know what’s wrong with her, but she’s alive and somewhat better. Have you talked to the doctor about the bloody pigeon?”
“Not yet. I think I should write it up as a report and include my observations.”
“Please do it now.”
“OK. I’ll print it and bring to the hospital.”
He carefully described what had happened on the hotel balcony and took it to the hospital. Several days later, he learned the doctor had found a report in a medical journal of what was at the time a rare medical condition, called pigeon fever. The information in his report enabled the medical staff to better treat his colleague’s illness. She was eventually discharged from the hospital. All of her friends rejoiced. They were certain the healing circle had saved her life when she was so rapidly and unmistakably headed to her demise.
This direct experience of the power of the group’s focused emotional healing intention was indelibly etched into his memory. It left him with the belief that healing others was possible with heartfelt prayer and visualization. Two decades later he would use this lesson to save his infant daughter’s life.
The Journey Unfolds: His First Aerobic Affirmation
He had been exploring kundalini yoga for several years, chanting Sanskrit syllables in rhythm with (what were for him) difficult asana movements. In February of 1983 he decided to formulate a personally relevant affirmation/mantra and repeat it with movement. At the time he was living as a free spirit in the moment without any plans for the future. He had earned a PhD and published psycho-physiological research in the best journals in his field. His organizational consulting clients were pleased with his consulting services. He not only couldn’t afford to buy a house, he couldn’t afford to buy a car. To avoid becoming an indentured professional servant for the rest of his life, he used intuitive guidance to integrate a variety of ancient spiritual practices with contemporary psychology into a method he called aerobic reprogramming. He carefully formulated his first aerobic affirmation/mantra: “I am effectively planning and implementing for my professional success.” He repeated this affirmation/mantra in rhythm with his breath, in rhythm with his movement as he jogged on the country road outside the rural cottage he had rented amidst burnt out tobacco fields. Six months later he resigned from the consulting firm where he had worked for three years and set out on his own as a solo consultant, never having made a sales call or written a service proposal.
Purpose Statement
In the first few months of 1984 he formulated a purpose statement for his long term career, printed it and taped it to the wall above the first Macintosh computer launched that year: “I am designing, developing, delivering and disseminating systems for constructive change for individuals, groups, organizations and the planet.” This became one of several aerobic affirmations that he repeated silently and aloud as he jogged. The essential meaning penetrated his consciousness, infiltrating his cellular memory and the deepest recesses of his body/mind/spirit.
Easter Sunday Exorcism
In the early 1980’s he acquired a parcel of inexpensive rural land in North Carolina. In the Spring of 1986 he served there as fire-keeper on multiple occasions for a sweat lodge that he developed with a small group of friends. They were guided by a California disc jockey who had undergone training in Lakota Indian chanting and sweat lodge practices. The fire-keeping role required him to stop smoking North Carolina weed. A healthy development.
On a spring night he ended what had become his second emotionally punishing relationship and drove the next day to the rural land where he felt an emotional connection. He took two hits of blue angel acid and fell asleep by a gurgling creek. He awoke feeling a deeply hostile bitterness at the harm being done to his planetary home, the earth he felt a part of. He grabbed a thick hanging vine by the creek and pulled himself up. Holding onto the vine, he began swaying from side to side. As he swayed, a rancorous inhuman guttural resentment came through him that sounded demonic. When an image of Ram Das entered his awareness, he shifted to repeatedly chanting “from the two into the one” in a melodious voice. This dissolved the negative energy sufficiently that he felt cleansed.
He moved slowly to sunlight on higher ground. At that point he had the sudden realization this was Easter Sunday and orally explored the meaning of the day’s experience aloud. This took his awareness to the site of the Crucifixion. As a child in the 1950’s he had seen the movie “The Robe” with Victor Mature looking up at the Cross. He experienced both looking up at, and down from, the Cross. As feelings erupted from his heart, he spontaneously wept at the pain, suffering and inhumanity of crucifixion. This had a purifying effect. After hearing his report of this experience, the holistic body worker who was his spiritual friend, told him that he had done an exorcism on himself.
Meeting His Partner
After having opened his heart on Easter Sunday, in the Fall of 1986 he developed a new aerobic affirmation: “I am meeting the woman with whom I will live, laugh and love.” He repeated this in rhythm with his breath, in rhythm with his movement as he jogged. Four paces on the in-breath, four paces on the out-breath. He had been doing self managed moving mantra with affirmations since February of 1983. After reading a total of six different translations of the Tao de Ching before sleep at night, he had developed a romantic hope to meet his Chinese mystical mate. On Jan 17, 1987 he went to the Chinese New Year celebration at a nearby Catholic Church and met Yong-Ling Sun — the beautiful, kind, open-hearted, delightful and proud spirit who consented to be his wife after “testing” him for a tumultuous year.
An Unexpected Warning
In the Spring of 1987 he took her to a National Forest near the Blue Ridge Mountains for a hike. They were enjoying the beautiful sun lit day as they moved up the trail’s gradual slope. After a short while, he began feeling uneasy. He had never felt apprehensive in the woods, so he wondered about the source of his discomfort. He dropped Yong-Ling’s hand and moved in front of her as the trail narrowed. As they continued to ascend, he could see a bend in the trail about fifty feet ahead. There was heavy brush and overhanging tree limbs that blocked the sun, creating dark shade. His unease spoke to him through his body. He stopped and said, “I don’t understand this. I have never felt uncomfortable in the woods, but there’s something bothering me about what’s ahead of us. Do you see that dark shade? I think we should turn around and go back to the trail head.”
After they had turned around and headed back for only a few steps, three men carrying rifles on their shoulder appeared from a side trail. He asked them, “Hey guys, I’ve hiked trails in the woods for years and never seen anyone with guns. What’s going on?” They told him they were hunting for a bear that had mauled someone on the other side of a nearby ridge. He replied, “Wow! That’s serious. I may have had a premonition about that. Do you see that dark shade ahead where the trail narrows and bends to the left? Something told me not to go past that point, so we turned around. You might want to check it out.” They turned in that direction to do so.
Chills ran through his body as he recognized that he had received a warning about nearby danger. He interpreted this as a message to pay attention to his senses, especially when he felt uneasy. This would prove critically important several years later in early June, 1989, when they were immersed in Beijing’s chaotic turmoil.
Past Life Recognition
In June of 1988 they moved to temporary living quarters in Atlanta for Yong-Ling’s summer internship as a Duke MBA student. They attended an event at the Omni that featured some of China’s most famous performing artists. It was truly entertaining. He was deeply impressed with the variety and capability of the talent. After multiple performances, the curtain closed for several minutes. When it re-opened it revealed a long line of beautiful Chinese women dressed in form fitting Chi Pao dresses. As a gong tone sounded, they each moved the same leg forward in perfect unison. He immediately felt a deep emotional recognition of this move. Chills coursed through his body. He began crying uncontrollably. As the Chinese women continued to dance, his bewildering emotion continued to flow throughout the performance. He said to Yong- Ling, “Why am I crying? I don’t understand it! The tears keep coming!” She told him the women were doing a concubine dance traditionally performed for the historical Chinese emperor. To humor him she said maybe he was the emperor or maybe a concubine and laughed. He replied, “I don’t think so. Maybe a child at court.” Still, his tears continued to flow until the performance was over.
The emperor’s court dance triggered a past life memory. Although there had been other hints, he considered his emotional response to the dance to be the first definitive evidence of a past life in China. The emperor’s concubine dance performance was an emotionally powerful deja vu experience.
PTSD From Suffering in Beijing
Yong-Ling graduated from Duke MBA School in late May of 1989. She wanted him to meet her parents in Xiamen, China and arranged a tour of multiple cities before arriv- ing her home town. They were in Beijing during the occupation of Tiananmen Square. They toured the square on June 3 at noon, sixteen hours before the tanks rolled in with aggressive troops to violently clear the square. After hearing rumors about what had happened, his journalistic reportorial instincts were triggered. On the evening of June 4th, he interviewed a tour guide who had been on the square when the violence started. The guide shared detailed information about his direct experience on the square and making it to safety by ducking into a side alley.
The next day they persuaded their van driver to take them around the city. In the middle of the day their van was the only vehicle on Beijing’s single ring road. At every exit they could see tanks and soldiers with automatic weapons. After exiting the ring road, they drove around the city and saw the results of much violence. They stopped at a street corner where local residents were gathered in small groups sharing emotional concern about missing relatives and rumors about what had happened. He asked Yong-Ling to question different people to continue his information gathering. Everyone was extremely upset. Many were crying. Several pleaded with her to tell oth- ers in the U.S. about what had happened, so the U.S. could “do something”.
He knew there was no way the U.S. would interfere with the Chinese government’s management of the situation. Something happened to him as he experienced the ever-present emotional turbulence in the city. He absorbed the anger, grief and suffering that surrounded him. The trauma penetrated his body, working its way deep into his innermost being. His open heart was scarred not only by the stark evidence of violent unrest and its suppression, but also by the emotional agony of those who were stricken by the event and its aftermath. It would take decades before he came to the realization that his ensuing problematic explosive anger was likely a symptom of PTSD arising from his direct experience in Beijing.
Heeding a Prescient Warning
June 5th and 6th in Beijing was like the fall of Saigon at the end of the Viet Nam war. All foreigners in Beijing scrambled for rides for the airport to exit the country. Before their small tour group was loaded into their van, Yong-Ling went to the business center of their Chinese hotel to send her new employer a fax message about delaying their upcoming scheduled trip to Beijing. As she stood in a long line waiting for the business center staff to carefully read each fax before sending it out, he saw an old beat up typewriter in the corner. Over a hundred years of “old school” print journalism in his family’s DNA compelled him to capture his experience in print. He banged out a quick first draft of what he had learned. Just as he was finishing it, Yong-Ling called out to him, “They’re sending my fax. Bring what you have written over to me NOW!” He whipped the thin rice paper out of the typewriter and rushed it over to her. She handed it immediately to the attendant as her fax was moving through the machine. Fortunately, the attendant did not take time to read it and quickly slipped it in behind the fax Yong-Ling had written. The timing was perfect.
He pondered what to do with the fax that he sent to Yong-Ling’s new employer, for them to forward to his cousin who was Managing Editor of The Huntsville Times. He desperately wanted to save it for historical reasons. After considering several options he folded it into a very small square about the size of his thumbnail and placed it inside the zippered lens paper compartment in his camera bag. They stopped for lunch on the way to the airport. As they boarded the van after lunch with the remainder of their tour group, he began to wonder whether he should bring his tightly folded fax to the airport. As the driver started up the van and it began to move forward, he sudden- ly felt a compelling urge and yelled, “Stop! Yong-Ling, tell him to stop the van!” She looked at him quizzically. He answered, “I got a message. Please tell him to stop.” They had been together long enough for her to understand his meaning. She directed the driver to stop. He rose from his seat, and yelled, “I need a light! Who has a lighter?” A van passenger handed him one. He quickly exited the van with his camera bag, pulled out the rice paper fax and burned it. When he re-boarded the van, he said to Yong- Ling, “It would have been a mistake to take that to the airport.” She nodded understanding.
He had received a prescient warning. The warning was validated at the next three airports their tour group went through. At each security check a guard opened his camera bag, unzipped the lens paper compartment and pulled out the contents for examination. If the small tightly folded square of typewritten rice paper had been discovered, it would have been examined carefully. During this volatile period, people were imprisoned or even executed for rumor mongering. His major takeaway from this experience was to listen to the “messages” he received and heed the Guidance that came through. He believed that such information came from outside his body/mind. There are many names for the source of this guidance. He knew the diversity of beliefs associated with each name creates undesirable and truly unnecessary conflict. The essential lesson he grokked was to pay discerning attention, take appropriate action and be deeply grateful for the Guidance that can often be available.
Aerobic Programming as Skillful Means
1993 - 2013 (China): The two decades he spent living and working in Shanghai, China are described in an unpublished memoir for that period. He used aerobic reprogramming extensively in China for guidance and energy to help build and sell two consulting businesses with Yong-Ling’s crucial participation as a partner.
They had many intensely difficult challenges as pioneers in China’s management consulting industry. What he called Aerobic Reprogramming became his guidingcrutch for creating solutions as they made it over, under and through unending business and relationship hurdles. There were often times it seemed he was immersed in chaos. The powerful concentration practice involved aerobic goal statements. There were times this seemed to insulate him from the surrounding disarray in a protective bubble of energy. He was cautiously respectful of the apparent power provided by carefully formulated mantra expressed during repetitive aerobic movement. This seemed to enable manifestation of the necessary win/win solutions for survival in such a fast moving, intensely competitive and rapidly changing chaotic environment.
They returned to the US in 2013. In 2016, he decided to share online the moving mantra method as a free noncommercial legacy give-back. He worked with a website designer for six months to collaboratively design and implement the site. He called it the “Ready For Better Method”.
Infant Healing
After working diligently through the bureaucratic approval process for two years, they successfully adopted a nine month old Chinese baby girl in August of 2003. They flew to Chong Ching to complete the paperwork and bring Miya Sun Beiman into their lives. She was so lily white with no hair on her head that it seemed unlikely she had been exposed to any sunlight at the orphanage. She was crying and hot, so they took her to the hospital the morning after they arrived back in Shanghai. Fortunately, her pediatric doctor had studied in Europe and spoke English. Miya was diagnosed with double pneumonia and rickets, a nutritional deficiency. She had multiple symptoms of rickets. The fontanel at the top of her head had not closed. Her temperature was approaching 105 degrees. They were devastated when the doctor gently told them that Miya might not make it through the night. Tears welled up for both of them.
Thirty managers were flying into Shanghai from around China that night for a workshop with Yong-Ling the next day, so he stayed overnight with Miya. Tubes were coming out of every orifice. He chanted healing prayers the entire night, holding her in his arms, dozing off, waking up to do more prayerful chanting, dozing off again, chanting again. The next morning the doctor smiled when she took Miya from his arms to run more tests. He cried with joy when she returned to tell him that Miya’s fever was down somewhat and she expected Miya to survive.
This was his first deep emotional commitment to healing a loved one. While he gently clutched her small fragile body that night, Wisdom guided his open heart to repeatedly surround Miya with light. Through love, light and focused healing intention, he was graced with her survival.
Releasing the Suffering of Phuket’s Tsunami Victims
Phuket was their preferred vacation location while living in Shanghai. There was a devastatingly violent tsunami in December of 2004 that killed many people in Phuket. They booked a month’s stay at the Phuket Marriott for January, 2005 on the northwest part of the island. (Every five years foreigners on a business visa had to leave China for thirty one days to avoid being taxed on their world wide income.) After their arrival they learned that bodies of the victims were being examined at the Marriott for identification. He talked to the hotel staff about what had happened. He heard stories of grief and suffering. There were stories about troubled ghosts appearing and disappearing, even wandering the beach confused about whether they were alive or not. One of the staff told him this was a terrible way to die in a Buddhist country, because Buddhists want to calmly prepare for their passing. Instead, the victims who drowned were shocked into struggling mightily to survive.
This information made a deep impression on him. Most tourists stayed away from the beach because of the abundant ghost stories. One night he walked to a grassy boundary between the beach and the swimming pool at the Marriott. He looked up at the stars and reflected on the suffering of the victims. As chills coursed through his body and he entered an altered state of consciousness, he began to pray aloud for the victims to be released from their fear and confusion. He prayed for their rebirth in a happy life. He asked for the grief of their loved ones to be healed.
Not long after they returned to Shanghai, he had lunch with the psychologist who had done their adoption home study. She told him about a client who had a recent powerful dream about suffering souls being returned for another life through a portal. Tingling energy coursed through him when he told her about what he had been guided to do on the beach overlook at Phuket. The synchronicity sent chills through his body. His takeaway was that his prayer may have benefited those who had experienced overwhelming suffering.
Healing on the Monterey Peninsula
China’s pollution grew just as rapidly as the country’s economic development, which was enabled to a great extent by coal fired power plants. Much of the coal had high sulfur content that created significant lead, mercury and cadmium emissions. These toxic emissions turned up in the air, food and water for everyone. The pollution began to severely affect his health, so much so that it reached the point every time he exercised he got sick. His immune system had deteriorated so badly that he was ill most of the time. He had lost weight, had low energy and felt bad most of the time. They were informed in 2011 they were required to take another exit for a month. To bolster his health, they decided to rent a cottage on the Monterey Peninsula. They shopped for organic food, breathed clean air, and eventually took short walks on the marine trail. It worked. He initially laid in bed most of the time reading or meditating in corpse pose. He slowly recovered his energy and gradually increased the speed and distance of his walks beside Monterey Bay’s clean ocean water. By the end of the month he was able to do a very slow jog without getting sick.
This was another significant takeaway for him — that pollution would eventually kill him and that clean air, food and water, combined with meditation and exercise could restore his health. Eventually they moved to the Monterey Peninsula and began to thoroughly enjoy their life there.
…continued in Part 2.
🙏💕🌎
ib
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