DAY 1 of my Daily Practice using the PhilosophersNotes Challenge begins with a reading of "The Four Agreements: A Toltec Wisdom Book" by Don Miguel Ruiz.
What a great book with which to begin this adventure! I read "The Four Agreements" years ago and even have a great set of meditation cards based on the book, but it has been awhile since I really thought about its important lessons.
If you haven't read it, the agreements are: 1) Be Impeccable with Your Word; 2) Don’t Take Anything Personally; 3) Don’t Make Assumptions; and 4) Always Do Your Best."
Rather than go into detail about what each of those means, I think I'd rather share a few of the Disruptive Thoughts that struck me as I listened, read, and considered Brian Johnson's PhilosophersNotes summary.
First, I had forgotten Ruiz' thoughts about how we domesticate our children in "the same way that we train any domesticated animal: through a system of reward and punishment." In the workshops I lead on oppression and discrimination, I talk about the socialization of our kids in much the same way. Do you remember the old musical, "South Pacific?" There is a lyric in one of those famous songs that says "You've got to be taught to hate and to fear. You've got to be taught form year to year. You've got to be taught before its too late—before you are six, or seven, or eight—to hate all of the people your relatives hate."
That hits me every time.
We have to unlearn that terrible stuff, or at least challenge ourselves to think about whether we really believe some of the crazy messages we learned as kids. A lot of those ideas were put into our minds by well-meaning adults whose ability to transcend their own social conditioning was limited by the context of their time in history. In his PN summary, Brian reminds us of Carlos Castaneda's (the author of "The Wheel of Time") advice that "the purpose of the warrior (the ideal person in the Toltec tradition) is to transcend social conditioning as we discover our own personal power ..."
As I was considering some of the other big ideas in this book, it struck me that one of the reasons I'm here in Bolivia right now is to help an organization through a difficult change process. The last few days have been a testament to how hard people will work when they believe in something. As the author Don Miguel Ruiz says, “When you transform your whole dream, magic just happens in your life. What you need comes to you easily because spirit moves freely through you. This is the mastery of intent, the mastery of spirit, the mastery of love, the mastery of gratitude, and the mastery of life. This is the goal of the Toltec. This is the path to personal freedom.”
He added another disruptive thought to my consultant ego: “Nothing other people do [or don't do] is because of you. It is because of themselves.”
Whoa, I needed that.
Lastly, in talking about the book, Brian Johnson defines "the Greek ideal of Areté (pronounced “are-uh-tay”) to mean 'excellence' or 'virtue' but with a deeper meaning, something closer to 'striving to do your best moment to moment to moment.'"
If you look up, you'll see the tag line I've used for our work at Common Ground for close to 20 years: "Learning and Growing Each Day From Every Moment and Every Experience." Pretty cool.
About the Author of “The Four Agreements” DON MIGUEL RUIZ
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Don Miguel Ruiz was born into a family of healers and raised in rural Mexico by a curandera (healer) mother and nagual (shaman) grandfather. The family anticipated don Miguel would embrace their centuries old legacy of healing and teaching and as a nagual, carry forward the esoteric Toltec knowledge. Instead, distracted by modern life, don Miguel chose to attend medical school and later teach and practice as a surgeon. Don Miguel began teaching in the United States, with his mother, the Curandera, Sarita in 1987 and over the following years distilled the wisdom that became The Four Agreements. (Adapted from his site where you can learn more about Don Miguel Ruiz and his son Don Jose Ruiz: MiguelRuiz.com!) |
