R4B Mastery - Lessons Learned: 10 Years Later [Part 1]
... from Focused Commitment to the power of Strategic Alignment across eight essential principles
The R4B METHOD takes practitioners through a sequence of stages: basic, intermediate and advanced. These stages enhance practitioners’ ability to focus their mind and momentarily infuse their body with their evolving intentions as their personal goals are achieved. The R4B MASTERY process introduces additional practices that are derived from ancient wisdom traditions, many of which evolved over a millennium, insulated from foreign influence by the impenetrable Himalayan mountains. These additional practices deepen and expand practitioners’ ability to manage their body/mind for their personal benefits, including the mitigation and potential liberation from suffering. Additional benefits are likely to arise for society and civilization. These additional practices will be introduced in future posts. This current post is focused on Lessons Learned over the past ten years.
One year before the free noncommercial R4B website was launched in 2016, The Call to Action in Section 1 below was saved on Oct 10, 2015. The dharma wanderer has added commentary informed by reflections arising from his direct experience over the subsequent decade from 2015 to 2025.
Section 1: A Call to Action [2015]
While it may appear to all rational thinkers that we are in deeply serious straits, there is still the mysterious quantum world through which our tangible and intangible world does evolve and morph ever more quickly.
ib: The deeply serious strategic issue in 2015 was climate change, aka global warming, and the multiple risks for tipping points that would contribute to tragic suffering from extreme weather events, including extreme heat and flooding. The dharma wanderer had been curating published information and personal communications from climate scientists, so he was more knowledgeable about the topic than what was revealed in the mainstream media.
I invite you to test a method I have refined over the past 35 yrs that is designed to impact that intangible world. I invite you to test the evolutionary hypothesis that in the midst of chaos, a laser-like focus [of consciousness] can create a Better Future. For a few moments let go of what we see coming and ask yourSelf the following:
Q: Considering my idiosyncratic knowledge, capabilities, talents and personal networks, Where can I have the most impact for a Better Future? What part of the evolving process that is unfolding can I participate in? What do I bring to this Dance?
ib: The dharma wanderer and his lifemate lived and worked in Shanghai China for two decades from 1993-2013, witnessing and contributing to that country’s massive socioeconomic development. His motivation to be of service was driven by his direct experience witnessing the aftermath of tragic violence in the Middle Kingdom’s capital city in 1989. The intense and ever-changing challenges he experienced during the subsequent decades necessitated his reach for a powerful method to cope with his uncertainty about how to build a boutique consulting service in China with no outside investment. He sought guidance for manifesting solutions to unending entrepreneurial challenges in an impermanent ever changing business environment. This was where the Ready For Better Method was refined over more than a thousand trial and error iterations.
In 2015 the dharma wanderer had returned to the US with his lifemate. He had shifted his strategic focus from entrepreneurial survival/success to sharing information about unfolding climate change precipitated by global warming. His direct experience led him to believe the method he had refined could be used for a wide variety of needs, wishes, hopes and aspirations.
Over the next ten years, from 2015 to 2025, his focus shifted again. This epoch would eventually be about integrating the Ready For Better Method with an ancient living paradigm that explained his life’s suffering and how to reach for liberating wisdom. Sections 2 and 3 below begin to clarify integration of the R4B method with that unfolding path to liberating wisdom.
ib: Now we return to the Call To Action document from 2015, with the dharma wanderer’s commentary in italics and a repeat of the fundamental question:
Q: Considering my idiosyncratic knowledge, capabilities, talents and personal networks, Where can I have the most impact for a Better Future? What part of the evolving process that is unfolding can I participate in? What do I bring to this Dance?
When you have answered these questions in a way that privately fits for you, then you can take the Next Six Steps in your own personal Journey toward Movement for a Better Future.
Take your answers and formulate your Strategic Intention. Put it in the form of a statement of Need, Want, Goal, Wish, Hope, Affirmation, Mantra, or Prayer.
ib: clarifying intention in words is a powerful step that enables trial and error learning as action is taken and the results unfold.
Take everything you may know about passive meditation, affirmations, mantra or prayer, and add MOVEMENT to it. Mobilize your clarity and energy by engaging in repetitive aerobic movement.
ib: aerobic movement stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, which is the fight or flight response of the autonomic nervous system. Mammals learn more readily under sympathetic nervous system [SNS] activation that generates increased mental and physical energy for survival. When the SNS is activated by vigorous movement, learning from direct experience more readily penetrates the body tissue. Repetitive cognitive input to the brain/mind during SNS activation becomes more deeply ingrained.
Breathe deeply in rhythm with your movement, repeating your Intention in rhythm with your breath, in rhythm with your movement.
ib: The breath is the back door to the central nervous system. Regulating the breath during movement builds more enduring breath awareness that is enormously useful in challenging situations. Deep inhalations enable more oxygen to be delivered to the tissues, feeding muscle mitochondria and providing more energy for action. Extending the duration of exhalations enables deeper and faster relaxation, a highly useful technique in stressful situations. Repetitive reprogramming trials with movement stimulate cardiac conditioning, thereby promoting cardiovascular health. A large body of health research has concluded that physical exercise enhances longevity.
Fine tune the wording as your Life Journey unfolds.
ib: Needs, wants, wishes, hopes and goals morph continuously. The R4B Method enables revision and refinement of intention as circumstances change. Focused intuitive awareness enables revision of intention as needed. Recognizing this awareness enhances guidance for each practitioner’s unfolding life journey.
Observe the results in your consciousness, including your thoughts, feelings and behavior. Consider where there is progress and also what is yet to be done. Consider how you can be more effective in taking responsibility for what you need/want/wish/intend.
ib: Observation of results is essential for learning to take place. When the futurist Buckminister Fuller was asked, “What is the purpose of life?”, his answer was: “local information gathering and problem solving.” The R4B Method surely enables that kind of learning through observations of the results that emerge from repeated trials testing a variety of actions. But there is something deeper available from such observation. Call it intuitive knowing, or even wisdom. This enables confidence to emerge from prior confusion, bewilderment and a sense of helplessness.
Revise, Adjust and Repeat.
ib: An essential aspect of the R4B Method is the necessity for repeated trials to enable practical learning, regardless of external challenge or apparent intrinsic incapability. Even when feeling clueless, taking action yields results that can be converted to learning for improved effectiveness. These six steps enable progressive achievement in the material world, as well as enhanced focus and creativity.
As we do this, Our Collective Journey accelerates to keep pace with what is Unfolding. We awaken to the conflict between Light & Darkness. We clarify our Path with this Method. This is so powerful it can seem like magic.
ib: The numbered section below is repeated as written in 2015. Lessons Learned and Commentary follow this numbered section.
Why is the R4B Method so powerful?
It focuses your consciousness on your most important needs, wants, goals, wishes, hopes and even prayers.
By stating what you intend for your own future and those you care about, you focus on the future, not the past. For some people, this is an important shift. As we let go of the past, we enable our opening to an unfolding future.
By stating your intention and doing so during repetitive movement, you push your Intention into your muscle tissue, which is where new learning will take place. This makes it much more likely that you will take action in the material world, and do so sooner rather than later.
By focusing your brain/mind on your most important goals, wishes and hopes for a Better Future, you become more aware of opportunities for taking action. You can even evaluate your "performance" by estimating the percentage of opportunities taken advantage of to take action for a Better Future.
By imbuing your brain/mind and your muscles with your stated intention, your level of commitment to creating a Better Future rises dramatically. So you spend more time on it, not because you have to, but because you want to.
By imbuing your consciousness with your stated intention, you push it more deeply into your unconscious where it incubates creative ideas beneath the surface of your awareness. Then, as you pay attention to the ideas that pass through your awareness, you can more easily sift through them, and select some for possible action. This method not only increases your creative idea production, it increases your creative behavior in the material world.
As you use this method, you will find that coincidences and synchronicities increase. Opportunities for taking action increase. This begins to increase your confidence in the possibility of a Better Future.
As you use this method, it changes your vibration such that you begin to hang with people who are interested in the same issues and goals. You meet new people and make new friends with whom you share a common interest. You begin to recognize that a community of resonant beings is emerging.
These results bring clear encouragement for further action. As that unfolds, you discover that challenges can be handled more effectively because of the learning and growth that you have been experiencing.
May you enjoy the Journey. It is a worthwhile one for our collective Better Future!
Be aware that all who do this with an open and sincere heart will gradually tune to the same frequency wavelength. As that happens, our collective consciousness amplifies our intent for a Better Future… as we unfold into loving energy and light.
May enabling support, guidance and Spirit be with us on our Collective Journey.
ib: The ending paragraphs of the above numbered section begin to hint at the underlying ground of being the dharma wanderer had sensed and repeatedly experienced, but did not yet have a more refined vocabulary to describe. During the next 10 years he explored a variety of wisdom traditions and their associated spiritual disciplines. This included exploration of indigenous meditative practices that had been refined over a millennium, insulated from foreign influence by the majestic and impenetrable Himalayan Mountains. These explorations yielded cautionary Lessons Learned described below in Section 2, as well as initial INSIGHTS from the Wisdom Traditions, clarified in Part 1 of Section 3 below. Part 2 of Section 3’s INSIGHTS will be shared in the next substack post of IB Reflections.
Section 2: Lessons Learned - CAUTIONS
Caution 1: ATTACHMENT
A bipolar duality is associated with the R4B Method. While it energizes focused commitment to effective action it also builds attachment to desired results. Excessive attachment fosters impatience and negative emotions that obscure guidance from the surrounding quantum field. The solution is to balance commitment to progress, while moderating attachment to results.
This fundamental caution clarifies what is often the first hurdle that must be overcome on the path to liberating wisdom: minimizing attachment to results while sustaining commitment to action.
Caution 2: EGO and ARROGANCE
As successful achievement is achieved through progressive iterations of trial and error learning in the material world, ego, arrogance and feelings of superiority tend to arise. Failure to identify egotistical arrogance contributes to personal suffering. The solution is to identify and dissolve this second obscuration to guidance from the quantum field.
This fundamental caution clarifies another key hurdle that must be overcome on the path to liberating wisdom: dissolving arrogance with gratitude for guidance from the quantum field. Recognizing there is no “me” achieving success. Instead, there is a being who is connected with all that is, using intuitive knowing to do what is called for in each actionable moment.
Caution 3: INSENSITIVITY TO GUIDANCE
Heightened awareness arises from the concentration skills developed from disciplined meditative movement. Attachment and egotistical self confidence can interfere with the recognition of guidance that inevitably appears as awareness becomes more refined through focused meditative movement. If the hints, clues, signs and signals that appear in awareness are ignored, negative consequences are more likely to arise and progressive achievement of intention becomes more difficult, if not impossible. The solution is to continue refining mindful awareness through both meditative movement and sitting/walking meditation.
This fundamental caution clarifies the unfolding path to liberating wisdom: responsiveness to guidance is a requirement.
Caution 4: REINFORCEMENT OF DUALITY
Each goal/affirmation/mantra/prayer repeated silently and aloud in rhythm with breath and movement typically reinforces the illusory duality between self and other. Use of the personal pronoun “I” in stating affirmations and intentions reinforces the practitioner’s separation from all else. This is the sense that “I, me and mine” are separate from everything else, including other people, places and things.
Parents reinforce this sense of separation when they help young children learn the names of people, places and things. Knowing names can be deceptive, because it can short circuit deeper more profound examination. Schools, mainstream media and culture reinforce the same sense of separation throughout the educational process. Massively pervasive advertising stimulates consumers to want/buy objects and experiences to feel better and be happier, thereby further reinforcing the perception of duality separating self from all else.
This duality creates the illusion of a subject [the practitioner] being separate from all other persons, places and things. This sense of separation may seem obvious, but it fails to recognize several aspects of relative reality. These include knowing the name of a person, place or thing is not the same as recognizing an infinite array of other dimensions that are multi-faceted aspects of that person, place or thing. This is true because nothing is ever permanent. Each is constantly changing. Not only that, each apparently other person, place or thing is interdependently linked in multi-dimensional relationships with other people, places and things. All beings and material objects are embedded in relationships with other beings and material objects. Thich Nhat Hanh, a respected Theravadan monk and peace activist, called this interbeing. Other traditions give it a different name: dependent origination.
Recognition of interbeing and dependent origination supports an unfolding path to liberating wisdom. This recognition enables the dissolution of duality’s illusions, and moments of union with all that is. The sense of a separate self is gradually dissolved through moments of mindful awareness that each being has an enduring relationship with all that is.
Section 3: Gleaning Insights [Part 1]
The insights below provide guidance that goes far beyond the R4B website’s detailed behavioral description for the basic, intermediate and advanced stages. These method descriptions provide clear guidance for how to clarify intention, develop focus, sustain commitment, enhance creativity and learn from trial and error.
The R4B Method can enables a powerful set of practice tools for achieving personal goals and objectives. These practices may be incomplete for liberating practitioners from the remainder of life’s dissatisfactions and suffering. The initial principles for liberation from suffering are identified below in the Essential Stage for R4B Mastery.
Essential Stage for R4B Mastery
The R4B Method is designed to enable practitioners to clarify their needs, wants, wishes, hopes, aspirations and take effective action in two realms: meditative movement and the external material world. The three progressive stages of this method develop a variety of useful and worthwhile cognitive and behavioral skills. These skills enable practitioners to satisfy the vast bulk of their needs and wants, over time, as their learning progresses. That learning proceeds in the same two realms: how to manage personal consciousness and how to effectively cope in the material world.
This learning enables successful achievement of strategic goals that arise from each practitioner’s apparently separate self. This is not, however, the peak of each practitioner’s life journey for health, wealth, happiness and well-being. The quantum field reflects back the intention arising from each practitioner of meditative movement. This reflection of intention back into each practitioner’s life circumstances arises through ever-present and unending impermanence. Thus, challenges continue to arise, necessitating more personal programming through meditative movement and the opportunity for creative manifestation through each practitioner’s application of the skillful means that have been developed.
This growth process opens practitioners of meditative movement to a more refined realm of existence that is governed by eight fundamental and interconnected principles for compassionate and ethical living:
1. Right Understanding: Seeing life clearly — understanding how craving, attachment, hate and anger create and sustain suffering.
2. Right Intention: Committing to act with kindness, compassion, and letting go of harmful habits.
3. Right Speech: Speaking truthfully, kindly and helpfully; avoiding lies, gossip, and hurtful words.
4. Right Action: Acting in ways that are ethical and avoid harming others—being honest, respectful, and considerate.
5. Right Livelihood: Earning a living in a way that does not cause harm or injustice to others.
6. Right Effort: Making a consistent effort to develop positive qualities and let go of negative ones. This means being patient with yourself and practicing self-improvement.
7. Right Mindfulness: Being aware of your body, feelings, thoughts, and what’s happening around you — living in the present moment rather than being lost in regrets or worries. Exploring a variety of meditative practices that support mindful awareness.
8. Right Concentration: Developing focus and calm, often through meditative movement and other concentration practices that enable one-pointed concentration and mindful awareness of guidance that arises from the quantum field.
These eight principles expand the field of view for anyone engaged in meditation, especially meditative movement. They identify key arenas for consideration by providing a clear map for reflective attention and action.
The ultimate goal in R4B MASTERY’s Essential Stage is for each practitioner to establish strategic alignment across all eight principles.
It can be useful for each practitioner to first identify whatever is the most challenging principle. Targeting that specific principle with R4B METHOD tools is a powerful approach to explore. Establishing confidence the most challenging principle is being consistently applied enables confidence the other principles can more easily be brought into strategic alignment. This alignment can become a powerful tipping point for the dissolution of personal suffering and surprising serendipitous and synchronistic benefits.
These benefits are likely to be accelerated if practitioners implement a change in their use of personal pronouns [I/me/mine] when engaged in R4B reprogramming.
Consider dropping the use of personal pronoun: I/me/mine
This shift involves dropping the personal pronoun I/me/mine when engaging in meditative movement and affirmations repeated during sitting and walking meditation. There are two variations:
Substitute “this being” for “I/me/mine” during application of the R4B Method and during sitting and walking meditation. Examples:
This being is mindfully observing thoughts and feelings as they arise
When anger arises, this being is dissolving it with deep inhalations and slow extended exhalations
This being is receiving helpful guidance for achieving ABC
This being is cultivating and expressing kindness
This being is using AI queries to enable improvements in health, wellness and well-being
This being is observing thoughts as they arise during mindful exercise
Another approach is to drop “this being” and simply focus on the process of momentary unfolding. Examples:
Mindfully observing thoughts and feelings as they arise
Dissolving anger with deep inhalations and slow extended exhalations
Receiving helpful guidance for achieving ABC
Cultivating and expressing kindness
Using AI queries to enable improvements in health, wellness and well-being
Observing thoughts as they arise during mindful exercise
The next post will introduce Lessons Learned—Part 2. This will initially clarify:
the Antidote Stage of R4B Mastery,
introduce a practice for dissolving negative emotions and
introduce a complementary practice for radiating positive emotions
… and more
May these lessons learned, essential principles and associated practices bring benefit for all who take intentional open-hearted action. Please feel free to share this post.
🙏💕🌎
ib
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