I would like to start off by sitting down. I just drove from Houston last night. A friend got me a nice hotel room just a mile from here so that I could just go directly from there to here this morning. I had a nice workshop I was doing at the Unity Church in Houston, and I thought maybe 30 people would show up. One hundred and fifty people showed up. I guess there is a lot of interest in meditation down there.

So, I would also like to share with you that at this time, this is my last official weekend to do official speaking engagements and meditations. I will still be doing them unofficially for the next few months, but this is my last weekend of official speaking engagements, so you got lucky. You have good karma. The reason why is because I am on a healing journey this year. I found out a couple of months ago that I have nasopharyngeal carcinoma. That's just a fancy way of saying nose throat cancer. It is on the left side near my Eustachian tube. It is at stage III at this time.

And so, my family and friends got concerned that I kept myself so busy the last couple of months, and so they finally convinced me that I need to just take a break and focus on my healing. I think that is wise advice. And seek the help of doctors and others on my healing journey. So I also would love to appreciate all of your prayers during this time because I believe that prayer is very powerful, and we don't just believe it. It is actually real. It is not just something like a fairytale. It is an actual reality. It is truly powerful. Prayer really is real, and I believe that.

So, I will do my best to present the message today, but I am not going to do it in a way that is going to exhaust myself. I have another speaking engagement tonight as well, so I am just going to take it easy and just speak gently from my heart and pace myself. I really appreciate your understanding. Let us begin by chanting just for a minute. I love chanting practice. I would just like to ask you to just go into a meditative state, a meditative posture, whatever that means for you.

(Plays shruti box) I am going to begin and end this chant with the Medicine Buddha of healing mantra, which basically means we are affirming the reality of and the truth and the radiance and the potentiality of healing as a part of who we really are and our oneness with the ultimate. And the second part means because of this reality, therefore, we have every right to manifest all the beautiful potentialities into actuality for healing on all levels: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.

Om Namo Bhagavate Bhaisajya-guru
Vaidūrya-prabha-rājāya
Tathāgatāya Arhate
Samyak-sam-buddhāya

Tadyathā: Om
Bhaisajye Bhaisajye
Mahā-bhaisajye-raja
Samud-gate Svāhā

Audience: May all beings be happy.

ChiSing: May all beings be free.

Audience: May all beings be free.

ChiSing: May all beings be joyful.

Audience: May all beings be joyful.

ChiSing: May all beings be at peace.

Audience: May all beings be at peace.

ChiSing: May all beings be happy.

Audience: May all beings be happy.

ChiSing: May all beings be free.

Audience: May all beings be free.

ChiSing: May all beings be joyful.

Audience: May all beings be joyful.

ChiSing: May all beings be at peace.

Audience: May all beings be at peace.

ChiSing: Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.

Audience: Shanti. Shanti. Shanti.

ChiSing: Salaam.

Audience: Salaam.

ChiSing: Shalom.

Audience: Shalom.

ChiSing: Amen.

Audience: Amen.

ChiSing:

Om Namo Bhagavate Bhaisajya-guru
Vaidūrya-prabha-rājāya
Tathāgatāya Arhate
Samyak-sam-buddhāya

Tadyathā: Om
Bhaisajye Bhaisajye
Mahā-bhaisajye-raja
Samud-gate Svāhā

Breathing in and breathing out, feeling the breath here and now. Let us take a minute to do a short meditation focusing on our lower abdomen as we breathe in and breathe out, visualizing or feeling a sphere of light shining in the lower abdomen. This connects us with earth energy, and we can say silently the mantra, "I am safe." Breathing in "I am," breathing out, "Safe." I am safe. Breathing in and breathing out, bringing the awareness to the center of the heart, visualizing or feeling a sphere of light radiating from the heart. This connects us to the energy of humanity. We can say silently our mantra here, "I am loved." Breathing in, "I am," breathing out, "Loved." I am loved.

Breathing in and breathing out bringing awareness to the center of the head, perhaps in the forehead, visualizing or feeling a sphere of light radiating in the center of the head. This can access the energy of heaven, and we can use our mantra silently here, "I am free." Breathing in, "I am," breathing out, "Free." I am free. Breathing in and breathing out, "I am safe. I am loved. I am free." And so it is. Amen. And let's take a deep breath together. Placing our palms together at the heart, Namaste.

So, yesterday I spoke on the theme of Buddha nature and Christ consciousness, seeing beyond religious blind spots with the two eyes of Buddha's wisdom and Christ's love, but of course, it does not have to just be these particular traditions. It could be any traditions that are meaningful for people on the planet, but for me personally, I have found that Jesus as one who has awakened fully to his Christ nature is one of the most powerful spiritual beings and teachers in my awareness, and also I have discovered in the last several years the Buddha also is a very powerful, wonderful, wise spiritual teacher as well, and I'm sure there are many others, too, in the world in history, and different ones meet different people's needs.

Everyone is at different levels of consciousness and spiritual evolution in their journey, so I think there is a place for all of them, but we cannot just appreciate all of the teachers equally. It does not do us any good because it stays at a theoretical level. It never goes deep. Otherwise, you become just like a little flitting person, you just flit here and there. You just go to the surface of the tradition, but you never go deep. So you actually have to choose a tradition to go deep in, but here's the thing. In the past, people would just choose one tradition, and that was enough.

However, in the 21st century, as the world is entering into a new era, I believe that the new trend is going to be people practicing in two traditions because what that will do is it will help expand our vision. We have two eyes, but they both have blind spots. But because we have two eyes seeing something, they both cancel each other's blind spots. So this is a very good metaphor for what I am talking about. If we can get in touch with two traditions very deeply, they can help expand our consciousness and awareness to cancel out any blind spots that we may have with just one tradition. I believe this will be the new trend in this century and beyond. But it is not necessarily for everyone. Some people may still need to just focus on one tradition. Some people might be able to do more than two. I don't know, but they would probably be very, very—lots of leisure time. For a human being, we only have a few decades to live usually on the planet. Usually just a focus on two is already a lot, so to focus on more than that, you probably would have to be someone with a lot of leisure time.

So, because of the attraction of Jesus and Buddha, I have chosen them to be my main two traditions, but for you, maybe it is not so much two religious traditions. It could be that you are centered in Unity, plus you do yoga practice. Or you may be centered in Unity, and you do qi gong practice. Or you may be centered in Christianity or some other tradition, and maybe the two traditions you work with are within the same tradition. Perhaps you want to stay in a Christian framework, but now you do the Catholic and Protestant traditions or the Orthodox and the mystical traditions. You know what I'm saying? So there are different ways you can have these two perspectives.

And in Christianity and Buddhism, I remember in the past century a lot of interactions have been taking place between these two traditions, and when the Christians came over to Asia, many of the Buddhists were very impressed with how they took care of the needs of the poor and the sick, and they would build hospitals and they would take care of the needy. This impressed many of the Buddhists, so because of that, one Buddhist nun in Taiwan, she was so impressed by this, she thought, "Why aren't the Buddhists doing this also?" Because it is in our tradition to be compassionate, so let's not just teach meditation the people. Let us actually help people with their real physical needs as well. So she founded one of the first free hospitals in Taiwan, and now they have several free clinics where people can come. If they can pay, great. If not, they still get treatment. So now Master Cheng Yen has organizations all around the world in almost every major Western civilization country, and her organization is called Tzu Chi, T-Z-U C-H-I. If you ever want to check them out, they do a lot of volunteer work, and they always accept new volunteers to help organize relief efforts.

So, on the other side, we have also seen this century the influence of Buddhism on Christianity as well, because many Christians as they were looking for something deeper than just simply church and liturgy and doctrine, they started to explore the contemplative traditions within their own traditions as well as other traditions, and many Christians were impressed by how so many of the Asian traditions had so much rich, detailed, skillful practices in the art of meditation—much more detailed than they had in the Western traditions. So many Christians were influenced by Zen and Vipassana and Tibetan Buddhism and other forms of meditation practices. And so, many of them started to learn from the Buddhists and other Asian meditators and incorporated into their own practice and then to discover in their own tradition ways to do the meditations also in a more Western or Christian way as well.

One example is Father Laurence Freeman, who has one of the largest Christian meditation movements in the world. There is only one other one that is larger than his. It is called the Centering Prayer movement, headed by Father Thomas Keating. But Father Laurence Freeman, who is a disciple of John Main, they started this Christian meditation movement. But it was because of John Main's experience of learning mantra meditation from a Hindu teacher while he was a missionary in Asia. But the Hindu teacher said, "You should use this technique, but apply it to yourself and your tradition." So do not say a Hindu God name. Use something from your own tradition as a mantra. So he meditated on it, and he realized, let's try maranatha. Maranatha is an ancient Aramaic word. It goes way back to the early church, and it means our Lord come, or our Lord comes. It is a very, very wonderful meaning on deeper levels. What it basically means is the true sovereign, the true reality of the universe is dynamic and always shows up in every moment, always present. But it is not a stagnant present. It is a dynamic presence that never stops coming, is always coming in each moment, helping us with our needs.

So, there is an inter-influence between the traditions. But I guess I will get to my real message today, mindfulness of emotions. But because Deborah is in the audience, I thought, ah she has already heard this message at another Unity Church already, so I thought, maybe for this service I will do something a little different. So, let's go to the PowerPoint. Forgive me, but somehow when we transferred the PowerPoint by e-mail, it got a little bit messed up. It is supposed to say, "Mindfulness of Emotions," and not, "Of Ions." And that is my website, awakeningheart.org. I hope you'll check it out sometime. Let's go to the next slide.

So all of us have centers of consciousness that can be metaphorically located in parts of our body. There is not one way of mapping this out. There are many different ways people map these things out. But, when we are being mindful, it is important to be mindful of how we are feeling in our energy bodies, because those are messages and clues as to whether we are being healthy or unhealthy in our emotional systems. And then those can be clues to possible problems that may arise later in the physical body, because the physical body manifests what is on other levels—emotional, mental, spiritual level.

So if you can detect the challenges or issues on these subtler levels before they manifest in the physical, that is great because once it manifests on the physical, it is so hard to change it sometimes, because it is now on a very gross material slow, dense level. But if you can transform it at the cellular level, it is easier. And I want to say with my cancer healing journey, I want to just re-emphasize what we all know. Prevention is way better than cure, okay? Preventative. So if you can do everything now to be as healthy as possible on all levels, it is so much easier than getting the disease or whatever and trying then to cure it. It is a lot easier to do it preventively than once you already have it, okay? So I highly recommend that we do preventative healthcare.

So, let's go to the next slide. In Chinese philosophy, we have three main energy centers that correspond to the earth, humanity, and heaven. Let's go to the next slide. And I like the Chinese system because it is simpler. It is easier than the seven chakra system, although the seven chakra system is quite profound. But for simple-minded people like me and you and others, three is easier to remember than seven. And now I hear they have like 12 and more. But anyway. So, these energy centers help connect us to our connectivity to the physical, to the earth, to our own human hearts, and to the cosmic flow of things.

Now let's go to the next slide. As I was meditating on these three energy centers, I realized that being mindful of the emotions, I was mindful of these energy centers and corresponding emotions, and I realized, oh, it might be possible to correspond to certain kinds of expression of emotion with these energy centers. And of course, I'm not saying this is absolute truth. This is just simply my understanding through meditation. And so I thought about, well, love, that would be in the heart. That makes sense, right? And I thought about joy, and I was like, joy is very, very vital energy. It is near the sexual energy center. It is vital energy, life force, joy, the oomph of life. Then I thought about the heaven center in the forehead, and I thought oh, when my mind is calm through meditation, I feel peace of mind. So this is how they correspond, but there may be other ways you can correspond them also.

So I thought, okay. Great. These are the three great emotions that we should all have. However, as I kept meditating, I realized a full human being doesn't just have love, joy, and peace. Aren't there moments in our lives as normal human beings that we experience sadness, anger, fear? Right. So I started to realize these are also part of the human condition, and it is for a truly full, well-rounded human being, we have all of these emotions. Let's go to the next slide.

And so, as I mentioned, I thought, okay. So here are the good emotions, and there's the bad emotions. I thought, no. No. I kept meditating, and I realized, wait a minute. Both sets of emotions are actually part of being human, so we cannot label one good and the other bad. In fact, the whole attitude of labeling one side good and the other side bad actually is the very culprit that leads to unhealthy emotions and expression of emotions and leads to neurosis, when we start repressing certain emotions. So, let's go to the next slide.

I realized through meditation that all of these are healthy emotions in the human being, and there is a place for all of them. Looking at Jesus for example, Jesus definitely had peace and love and joy, but also Jesus had anger when he overturned the money changers at the temple because they were taking advantage of people financially. Jesus experienced sadness when he wept for his friend Lazarus, who had passed away. And he also experienced fear—so much fear that he started sweating blood from his forehead on the night before he was crucified. And he said, "Let this cup pass from me, please," you know? So Jesus, who was our model of an enlightened human being, had all six emotions. So we can say that one set is good versus the other being bad. They're all part of a full human being.

Now, as I meditated on these emotions, I realized, okay. So fear, anger, sadness, they are not bad, but what happens when we don't take care of them mindfully and when we start repressing them or start letting them get carried away? Like emotions gone wild. Then—next slide—it leads to the unhealthy expressions. Fear if unchecked or if not taken care of and nurtured and embraced with mindfulness and care can start leading to anxiety and paranoia and extreme fear. Anger can lead to hatred and violence, a very, very violent kind of anger, and explosive, harmful anger. And sadness can lead to debilitating forms of depression that may extend way longer than necessary. For example, everyone has normal grief over the loss of a loved one, but if you don't take care of it in a mindful way, that grief can start festering, and you can start making these mental cycles of telling the story over and over and over again, and you become your own prison in your mind, and this grief instead of lasting just weeks last for years and decades. That is unnecessary, absolutely unnecessary. It is a very debilitating thing.

So we have to learn how to practice mindfulness to take care of our emotions, to know what is the message of our fear, to listen. What is this fear about? What is this anger about? What is this sadness about? When we can take care of it, then it will not go into the unhealthy forms. The reason why it goes into unhealthy forms is because we are not listening, so now the emotions are screaming even louder to get our attention because something needs to have our awareness for transformation.

So as I continued meditating on this, I realized okay. Since there's an unhealthy form of this set of emotions, could it be that there is also an unhealthy form of love or peace? I thought surely not, and yet, as I meditated, I realized yes. Because love, joy, and peace only stay in the positive, healthy mode because of mindfully learning how to take care of them and keep them growing, but when we don't take care of them in mindfulness, then we have the unhealthy forms, okay? Peace, which is great, if unchecked can start sliding over to apathy, indifference, non-caring. It is like I am so at peace with all things, all is well, which is true on a certain level, but if you're not careful, it is like all is well, I don't need to do anything, everyone is just fine the way they are, let the people starve to death. Let them eat cake or whatever. That is actually an unhealthy form of apathy, and love can lead obsession or obsessive-compulsive clinging, craving, jealous desire, the kind of love that no longer actually nurtures the partner, but entraps them, imprisons them. So we have to be careful.

And also, joy if unchecked with mindfulness can lead to manic behavior, maybe a wild fun that is dangerous and harmful. You know, joy gone wild. So you want to be careful, because a lot of deaths and injuries have occurred, especially in college students' lives, when they went to crazy with the joy, okay. So we don't want that kind of harmful joy. So through mindfulness meditation practice and spiritual practice, we can keep our peace growing, our love growing, our joy growing. We can take care of our fear, take care of our anger, take care of our sadness and help it not to lead into these unhealthy forms of these emotions.

Now here is something that I thought about after I presented this at one New Thought church, because I thought about the teaching of "A Course in Miracles," which has a lot of profound teachings in it, and for the course, the two main emotions are love and fear, so how does that fit into this system? Well, I meditated on that, and I realized, oh, what I am talking about here are natural human emotions. What the Course is talking about are our ultimate reality. It is a transcendent level of understanding. So on just the normal human everyday realm, this is very applicable, but when you're talking about the deeper, transcendent realm, then you're talking about love versus fear as a home base attitude.

So actually, you can come from a place of love, love for peace, love for fear, love for your love, love for your anger, love for your joy, love for your sadness. It is the kind of fundamental love that takes care of your emotions, your human nature, whereas if you come from an ego place of fear, which is a distortion of reality—it is not even really transcendent. It thinks it is, but it's not. Then what happens is you fear love. You fear your joy. You fear peace. You fear your fear. See, that's the beginning of a fear of leading into paranoia and anxiety, when you fear your fear, when you fear your anger, when you fear your sadness. That is what turns it into unhealthy expression, so really we have two fundamental ways of approaching our emotions, love and fear. So are we going to love all of our emotional states and take care of them in mindfulness, or are we going to fear and repress and project and resist our experiences of all of these things? This is the fundamental question.

Okay. Next slide. So we want to take care of our energies, our emotions, and my time has run out today, but I just want to say thank you to all of you for listening. Be mindful. Practice meditation. Practice mindfulness throughout the day. So meditation practice you can do 20 minutes in the morning before breakfast, but mindfulness is something you can do all day long as you are walking, driving, hugging, listening, cooking, cleaning. It is very important to be present, because when we practice presence, and we are very present to our emotions, which have messages, and then we can listen to them, because if we don't listen to them, guess what? They scream at us, and we do not need screaming emotions anymore. That was like our past lives. Now we have a new way of doing things for a new era on the earth.

Let's go to the next slide. One more. And remember that our compassionate love extends to all beings everywhere, not just humans, but all beings. So be kind to your animal friends as well.

And you can go to that last slide. Thank you very much. Namaste.

So we are going to conclude now from a listening meditation from one of these songs from my music CD. I would love for everyone to get a copy today after the service. I'll be at the back table. Thank you so much.