So I was reflecting that often I listen to the news or all see a commercial or watch

movie or see magazines out and realize that the real suffering in our culture is an absence of the sacred

that we see a kind of a fixation on the what's wrong and when I say the sacred what I mean is that

which we experience as holy or that which we review some of the words that come to mind are

beauty and beauty matters so much and truth, love, compassion. There are really expressions of a

wholeness that's beyond the appearances of separation, beyond the preoccupations of our mind

and there's an absence of the sacred because there's an absence of paying attention

of presence and presence reveals the sacred and we can see if we move through our day in the

world around us in our own minds just this is the conditioning is to get narrowed rather than a

kind of open presence that's available to see and sense the mystery we're preoccupied we're

already occupied there's not the space and we're fixated we're on our way somewhere else as I

mention a lot and trying to achieve or accomplish it we're trying to get out of the red in some way

try to make up for something so we're not so available and last week I described it the way

that's helpful to me it's as if we're on this bicycle and we think we're trying to get somewhere

and we keep pedaling we keep being pretty busy with our minds and our activities and our

figuring out and our worries and the faster we pedal we're pedaling away from presence

and it doesn't mean we can't be present and active but our minds get fixated and lean forward

and we're not present and active we're just pedaling away from the moment we're not here so much

and I find the flags of this trance that we get into where we're not here not available for the

beauty or the goodness or the love that the flags of trance are a kind of a speediness

and we can feel it in ourselves another flag is judgment that in some way we're assessing

ourselves or the world is not okay and another flag is that we disconnect from our senses

...