http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/ Not So Big Life Community Blog Forum 43200 /assets/images/ui/bookCoverWiki.png http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/ 135 199 Not So Big Life Community Blog Forum Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:22:27 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=266 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=266 This blog post is directed toward young people. The letter that follows is intended to be passed around wherever it might be helpful. It is, in a way, an introduction to Not So Big Living, though when I began to implement the process myself back in 1971, that notion was several decades in the future. I'm posting this material in response to a request from an active member of the Not So Big Life Community Forums who asked me in a recent note if I had any words of wisdom for her daughter, a teenager who was going through a rough period. Over the years I've shared a version of the letter with many parents looking for something to give their teenagers to guide them through life, and I know that in several cases it has shifted the young person's perspective significantly, and has helped them to see that there is more to living than they'd previously recognized. A small amount of objective self reflection can work wonders. We just have to be guided in how and where to start. So whether you are a teenager or... Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:36:15 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=260 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=260 The Not So Big Life Workshop that took place at Omega Institute’s Rhinbeck Campus over the 4th of July Weekend was a great success. The two dozen or so participants were from all over the country—some knew me best through my Not So Big House series, and some knew me through their engagement of the Not So Big Life. I realized during the second day that there were a few in attendance, especially those who were more familiar with my house design books, who would probably have benefitted from a more introductory workshop that focused on the first four chapters of The Not So Big Life . But for most in attendance, the workshop, which was designed to expand upon the less easily grasped chapters—5 through 12, seemed to be just what they were looking for. I was delighted to discover that many of the participants had been carefully reading the posts and conversations on this website, which allowed us to begin the workshop with an expanded collective language and set of understandings, and that made it possible to... Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:52:31 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=259 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=259 I use the term Waking Dream to mean the same thing as "My life". It is the story of you, the story you are dreaming of a small self who is the protagonist in the dream. I’m including this post for those attending of the Omega Workshop I’ll be giving this 4th of July Weekend, but it will also be useful for anyone who has been working through The Not So Big Life , and has found themselves stumbling over the concept of the Waking Dream. The trick is to see that all that we take to be "real", all that we call "my life", is in fact just as much a dream as the dreams we experience at night. It is how consciousness explores itself, through each point of awareness (we would normally say each person's awareness, but the person is just a dream character) experiencing events. So let this sink in for a moment: Our everyday lives are dreams. We are dream characters in these dreams. The funny part is that we think that we are persons, and we think we are awake in life. But the reality is... Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:20:48 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=255 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=255 I’ve been experiencing something pretty profound over the past week that I want to share with you. To those who are not familiar with Second Life, it is a virtual world, created in cyberspace by its own residents, that currently has over 13 million participants, with an average of 38,000 residents logged on at any particular moment. Some of the regular visitors to the Not So Big Life site will know that I wrote a blog post back in October of last year entitled “Second Life Provides a New Metaphor”. As often happens when you bring your attention to something, an opportunity arose that is related to the Second Life world…very related as a matter of fact. A couple of months back one of the people who works with me heard of a woman in Second Life, Cybergrrl Oh, who was looking for speakers for a regular event that she hosts on Athena Isle, her Second Life real estate. To make a long story short, contact was made, and a date was set for me to make an appearance and to discuss with residents some of the... Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:02:02 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=253 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=253 As I'm preparing for the Omega workshop (see my last post for details) it occurs to me that I can, through this blog, share with everyone visiting the website some of what will be engaged in during that three day period. Since quite a few people have told me they would love to come but are unable to do so because of the timing, this website provides a tool to extend the reach of the workshop to anyone with a desire to participate. Over the next two weeks I will be posting here a few of the most important dialogues and commentaries that have appeared on the Community Chapter Forums in the past year. There's a huge amount of material posted there, and at this point it is pretty labor intensive to read through all of it--although if you do have the time, the material is a terrific supplement to the book. The pieces I will be posting will be valuable for anyone planning to attend the upcoming Not So Big Life Workshop. But if you are unable to attend, reading through these posts will give you an opportunity to... Mon, 19 May 2008 13:51:52 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=249 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=249 I was excited when the Omega Institute, an organization in Rhinebeck, NY (2 hours north of New York City) that specializes in teachings related to self awareness and personal growth, invited me to present a workshop over the 2008 July 4th weekend. ( click here for The Not So Big Life Workshop ). In the last newsletter (or minizine, as I called it) I mentioned the workshop and invited those who are interested in developing their own Not So Big Life to participate. Several people wrote back to ask how the workshop would be structured and what they might get out of it. I’ve decided to devote this blog post to the subject as the questions continue to arrive as July draws closer. So the following is a description of what I have in mind. The final workshop may deviate from this format a little, but it will give you a sense of what to expect: The challenge for anyone desiring to live with a greater degree of awareness in today’s super-sized and super-speeding world is to embody what they know about themselves... Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:47:27 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=240 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=240 There’s an understanding about consciousness that I’ve been wanting to put down in words for several weeks now. And I think the best way to describe it is through a well known metaphor, the challenge we have in understanding its implications, followed by an analogy. The Metaphor: Mystics of all religious traditions down through the ages have used the mirror as a metaphor for what we typically call manifestation—the world around us as well as the universe we are a part of. But what do they really mean? We understand that a mirror reflects, and that the image in the mirror has no independent volition. In other words, although the objects in front of the mirror are reflected, and although a human being can observe his or her own likeness in the mirror, that human being is under no illusion that the reflection of itself is the real thing. But how do we come to know that the image in the mirror is a reflection of our own body? Quite simply, we are taught to see this way by our parents when we are very young.... Sat, 22 Mar 2008 17:24:12 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=231 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=231 Ever since the beginning of February I have been increasingly aware of the remarkable number of synchronous events taking place in my ‘waking dream’—my experience of everyday reality. You can read about some of them in the correspondence that occurred following my last blog post, “What do Oprah and Tolle represent in my Waking Dream?” But since there’s a lot there, and I know that many visitors to this site will appreciate a synopsis, let me simply say that several participants, through their engagement with the content of this website, were able to recognize that events that seemed to be happening to them alone proved to be influenced by happenings that they had no knowledge of until after they had read the blog stream. All of us were given a glimpse of the underlying workings of consciousness, and the interactions between our respective lives, just like the patterns that concentric ripples make on a pond’s surface when rain strikes. As we engaged this conversation in real time, the experience was... Thu, 28 Feb 2008 22:53:41 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=224 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=224 For those who have read The Not So Big Life , you’ll recall that in chapters five and six I introduce a concept called “the waking dream.” This is a profoundly different way of looking at what happens to us in our daily lives. Rather than see ourselves as separate from everything that happens to us and from everyone that we know, there’s a way of looking that is very similar to the way we’ve come to better understand our nighttime dreams—namely by recognizing that all aspects of our lives are reflections of ourselves. Everything in life is reflecting us back to ourselves. So, whatever we observe in others, whatever reactions we have, and whatever joys we experience are all there to teach us more about who we really are. It’s never about the other person, no matter how much there appears to be for them to learn in the situation at hand. Your only job is to understand why this event is in your life, and what it is there to teach you . I give all this as a preamble because recently I’ve been noticing some... Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:19:36 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=199 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=199 Having told all my readers that engaging in The Year End Ritual Exercise is such a useful way to seed the coming years with your heart’s longings, I decided that I really needed to do the exercise myself this year, even though I hadn’t done so for several years. I began the process about a dozen years ago, and continued to devote time to the ritual each year for six years. Then I moved to North Carolina, and somehow the process fell by the wayside as I began to devote more of my life to what had always been my heart’s desire to that point—namely writing. I guess in some way my personality must have interpreted the now full time living of this dream as the end of the road for the Year End Ritual. I didn’t appreciate that my heart would, of course, develop new longings and leanings that would continue to unfold, and that writing per se was just a step along the way. So as I opened the new notebook I had designated for the task this December 26th, it was almost as much of an adventure as it had been all... Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:39:10 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=179 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=179 All of us have dreams for ourselves and our lives, but sadly most of us don’t live them because we never take the time to listen, and never pay full attention to what our hearts long to do. That’s why I wrote The Not So Big Life, to help people develop this skill of inner listening, and in so doing to find the true meaningfulness they long for. There’s a key tool in this process which I describe in detail in Chapter 11 of the book and that I want to give you a taste of here. I call it the Year End Ritual and it’s intended to help you become the gardener of your own life—planting seeds this year’s end and watching them germinate and grow over the years to come. There’s no one “right” way to do this so use the material I present here as a guideline, and then tailor it to fit your life and schedule. The goal is to set aside some time at the end of each year—I designate about eight to ten hours during the last week of the year--to conduct a review of all the significant things that have happened over the... Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:51:14 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=173 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=173 Over the next few months you’ll find some new material arriving on several of the Chapter Forums. I have invited a number of individuals who are engaged in the process of understanding their inner workings to contribute their findings so that others can see how this work is done. In Chapter 4 of The Not So Big Life I explain that our personality—that thing we’ve worked so hard on to protect us from unwanted experiences—is not the friend we usually take it to be. In its valiant attempt to defend us, it is actually and unintentionally keeping us from the very experiences we long for—the experiences of wholeness, of value, and of feeling at home in our lives. As you read through this chapter again and do the exercise at the end of it you may begin to glimpse what you are missing by always believing what your personality tells you. All those conditioned patterns that make up the personality are in fact filters over Reality. They’re dramatically limiting what is right in front of you all day everyday. The... Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:24:20 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=156 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=156 In Chapter 5 of The Not So Big Life (p. 97—4th line down), I introduce the concept of the Waking Dream, the notion that everything that is happening in our lives is a kind of dream in which every character and every event that happens to us is a reflection of an aspect of who we really are. This is a truth that’s very difficult for most humans to grapple with because it disavows the separate existence of that which they’ve always taken themselves to be. Over the course of the book, I attempt to loosen the grip of the small self’s belief in its own inherently separate and independent existence. If my words have been effective, by the end of the book you begin to appreciate that things are not at all as we assume they are, and we are simply playing a part in a huge collective dream that’s being dreamed by all of Consciousness. We’re not the separate and isolated beings we imagine ourselves to be. This is a tough nut to crack because our everyday experience makes the illusion of this separateness so... Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:47:10 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=151 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=151 An amazing thing happened last week. There I was, speaking in front of hundreds of people at West Coast Green, a conference I’d been eagerly anticipating for months, and that horror of horrors that every speaker dreads happened—my Powerpoint presentation refused to cooperate. Worse actually. Although the images weren’t showing up on the screen beside me, the small screen at my feet, intended to help the speakers to know where they are in their talk without having to look to the big screen beside them, was showing a rapidly changing random smattering of images from my talk. Try staying focused and present in the moment with that happening in your peripheral vision! I realized, as my mind leapt around, trying to figure out what to do next, that I had two options. I could either continue to struggle with the Powerpoint, eating into the already limited number of minutes I had available to impart what I wanted to say; or I could forget about the visuals and simply speak. I chose the latter. And that’s when the... Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:57:06 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=137 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=137 It’s been a little over a month since I wrote a blog entry—a month in which I have been attempting to ‘vacate’ after an intense three months of book promotion. It was an enlightening time, spurred on by a call from a reporter from the Wall Street Journal, June Fletcher, who told me she was contributing to an article about what a number of well-known individuals planned to do with their summers, and then whether or not they followed through. She wanted to include me amongst her list of celebrities, and so she asked me, “What are you planning to do? Do you have a task in mind that you want to accomplish, and if so why this one?” I knew the answer as soon as she asked. Each time I was interviewed by phone about The Not So Big Life and the parallels between how we inhabit our houses and our lives I had been painfully aware that my inner office—the place in which I write, meditate, and talk to reporters—was filled (discreetly of course) with boxes that I had brought from my previous house in St. Paul, but had... Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:55:55 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=120 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=120 Two weeks ago, when I was responding to a note from a visitor to the Community Forum who was working to understand the implications of her dreams, I had asked her to ask herself this: "Who is it that creates (her dreams)?" and "Who am I really? You know that you are aware, but where exactly do you begin and end?" I completed my note by saying "Ponder well". I hit the Submit button, and then wondered, "What does it mean to ponder something?" I could feel that embedded in this question was an important inquiry. With my comment about pondering I didn’t mean that I want her to think about it a lot. I knew that what I was asking her to do was to consider, but not with intellect--with something beyond intellect, with something beyond the confines of the small self. As often happens when you hold a question as I was doing with this one, little pieces of insight start showing up unbidden, embedded in completely unexpected places in the content of your life. The first one... Fri, 13 Jul 2007 21:39:37 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=110 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=110 We’ve added a new feature to the Not So Big Life website that I hope you will contribute to in the near future. It’s called the “Passion Wall” and it’s meant to help you articulate and share with others what it is you are longing to do, but have never made time for in your life. You may remember that in Chapter 1 of The Not So Big Life , on p. 14, I quote mountaineer William Hutchison Murray, who wrote: “…the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.” By posting your own particular passion, inspiration, or longing on the Passion Wall , you’ll be taking the first step in that process of committing yourself to it. That, in turn, will help usher into your life new opportunities that support that passion. You’ll also be allowing others to read your intention, and so offering all visitors a... Tue, 05 Jun 2007 17:13:56 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=81 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=81 It’s been one month now since I began the book tour for The Not So Big Life , and over that period I’ve learned a lot from my readers about how to get the most out of the process of engaging what it has to offer. In the book I strongly encourage people to engage the exercises at the end of the chapters before reading further. This is the process by which the material presented can be integrated into everyday life and experienced directly rather than just as an intellectual notion. But what I’ve noticed is that some people have taken this so much to heart in that they aren’t proceeding beyond the first few chapters because they feel they haven’t adequately performed the exercises for those chapters yet. (It looks as though I have some high achievers among my fans!) Although their dedication is commendable, I’m going to suggest a revision to my previous recommendations if you recognize yourself as one of this group. What I recommend is that you first read through the book, jotting down things that arise as... Thu, 31 May 2007 15:27:21 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=72 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=72 It is exactly one month since The Not So Big Life was released, and in that period I've flown to a number of cities around the country to speak about the process of engaging the book to eager audiences at conferences and at book signings. Unlike the typical protocol for such "book tours" designed to launch a book, I argued that instead of visiting all the destinations in a three week period, I wanted to conduct my tour in a Not So Big and Not So Fast manner. So instead of taking the usual three weeks, mine is taking me three months. I'm traveling every other week which gives me time to regroup and rebalance in between trips. Once in a while I've wondered if this is a good idea, or if I've reduced the book's chances of attaining that "fever pitch" that will allow it to sell copies at the speed expected these days in order to reach best seller status. But yesterday something happened that gave me my answer. And of course, it didn’t come in a form I could have conceived of prior to the... Mon, 28 May 2007 17:17:47 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=62 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=62 The book has been out for long enough at this point that it's time to ask you, the visitors to this website, to share your general thoughts with others-and with me! Even if you haven't read more than a couple of chapters, I'd enjoy hearing about things that have come to mind as you read, as well as how your everyday life is shifting, and what you are noticing about your habitual patterns of behavior. Good, bad, or indifferent--it's all fair game. This is how we can learn from each other. To engage in a more in-depth inquiry with other readers, join the Community in The Book section of the forum. Warmly, Sarah Thu, 03 May 2007 17:21:00 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=20 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=20 Good Morning, America! It’s time to reconsider what we’re doing here. As I write this, I’m traveling at plus or minus 20,000 feet above the Earth’s surface—a remarkable feat that we take quite for granted these days—on my way home from New York City and the official launching of The Not So Big Life . New York City. Just the words alone conjure the rush and bustle of millions of anxious and ambitious humans, moving through their days on fast forward, stopping now and then for a jolt of caffeine from the closest coffee house, eating lunch on the go, and for the most part unaware of the sheer wonder of what surrounds them. Think about it. A city. A BIG city…filled to the brim with creativity and dreams. If we could only see it, really see it and really experience it, it would without a doubt knock our socks off. So there I was, in the midst of this marvel of human enterprise, preparing to explain to the world—or at least to that part of the world that tunes in to TV’s favorite morning show as they go about... Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:00:13 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=12 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=12 After I had finished writing The Not So Big Life , and as I began to direct my attention toward the promotion and publicity for the book, an idea popped into my mind. I realized that there is a perfect analogy for the new dimension of living revealed by the book. They're called Magic Eye images. A few years ago, when this remarkable technique for seeing a three dimensional image embedded within a two dimensional one came into vogue, it was a common occurrence to see people staring spellbound at books and posters containing these amazing visual marvels. The first time I saw one, I was in a cafe on the Big Island of Hawaii where there was a huge Magic Eye poster on the wall. The image fascinated me, and in short order I was standing transfixed before it, along with three or four others, as well as a couple of would be gawkers who couldn't quite see it yet. With patience, one by one, and with exclamations of delight, they too saw the new dimension spring to life in the image before them. Ever since that day... Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:43:01 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=10 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=10 The basic premise of this exercise, which you’ll find described in abbreviated form in Chapter 7 of The Not So Big Life, is to build into your day a regular interruption, designed to wake you up in much the same way an alarm clock does each morning. But here we’re breaking in on the activities of the day by building in a ten second pause every fifteen minutes, during which you simply ask yourself, “What is now?” or “What am I experiencing right now?” Over time this simple exercise will bring you to an increasing awareness of every moment—you’ll be training yourself to be present in your everyday life. The point is to notice your own experience of the exercise. As you continue to do it, those experiences will change. You might even want to keep a record of what you have experienced at the end of each day so that you can see what is happening over time. Here’s the way I’d recommend you implement the exercise: Every morning, when you get dressed for work, or when you head for the kitchen and that first cup... Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:23:21 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=9 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=9 As I’ve been preparing, these last few days, to start making entries to this blog, all sorts of dreams and visions have come to mind. I can imagine the power of this tool as a transformative agent—what better way to find out what readers and listeners are seeing and hearing, to discover the places where they need some guidance to get over the bumps in the road, and to help open doors that may, at first, be invisible. When I first began thinking about writing The Not So Big Life, I wanted to have an equally vital component on the web, through which readers could interact and learn more about the techniques and exercises described. If you’ve already read the book, or listened to it in audio book form, you know that there’s a lot of new material to engage and metabolize, whether you are new to inner work or you’ve been practicing some sort of spiritual discipline for years. Integrating the changes into your life takes time, and requires some pretty constant review of the basic tenets to keep you focused and... Thu, 22 Feb 2007 17:23:19 GMT http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=11 http://www.notsobiglife.com/community/blog_view.php?t=11 My latest book, The Not So Big Life: Making Room for What Really Matters , is being published by Random House this coming May, and this website, as it stands right now, is intended to give you a taste of what will be presented for readers once the book is out. At that time, there will be a lot more features than those you see currently, so be sure to come back then to check them out. The book presents a new twist on Not So Big, and one that I believe is desperately needed in our too fast and way too over-stuffed lives. I’m using this blog to introduce you to the Not So Big Life concept, and to encourage you to pass along this introduction to any friends you think might also be interested in knowing about it. The Not So Big Life, as you’ll discover when you explore the website or read the book, is just as tide-turning a concept as The Not So Big House, containing a similar message but one that’s applied to how we live our lives rather than how we design our houses. Just as I’ve described the need in house...