The Twelve Tools

by Natti Ronel

  The third possibility of giving is full internalization of the idea of promoting good to the point where it becomes our way of life. When a person reaches this point, he or she is living the life of grace. Reaching this point is a fairly rare event, although in a certain sense, we are all there already. Every time we participate in an action that promotes good, for a moment we touch something of the reality of grace, which exists and of which we are an inseparable part. To live it in full is possible after we undergo a transformation of our being. In his book, Path of the Just (Mesilat Yesharim), Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato (a.k.a. The Ramchal) describes stages on the way there. The Tibetan Buddhist concept of Bodhisattva also describes spiritual achievement manifested by a being whose essence is to increase the good in the world. When we bring the idealistic vision down to the ground of our reality, the “Promoting Good” tool suggests to us that we strive to become beings focused on good and on good works according to the definition in all circumstances, in addition to situations where it seems that someone needs help, in which case it is clear that we’ll do good. This is also the full embodiment of the principle that is well worth repeating: to be the grace that we want to encounter.

  Between good and evil

  When we look at daily life, all kinds of limitations arise and sometimes we ask ourselves if implementation is possible at all. Let’s imagine a case in which we want very much to promote good, volunteering and full of good intentions, on behalf of a group of people who need help. Perhaps we perform acts of grace for somebody, and they respond in an unexpected way, repaying with evil the good that we have done for them. In almost every sphere, between parents and children, between couples, when people volunteer on behalf of strangers, or those in the neighborhood, in every sphere this is liable to happen, and it happens countless times. Someone has good intentions, acts without seeking reward, out of pure giving, and the one who profits from the good work, the beneficiary of the gift, responds in a hurtful way, and exploits the favor done for him or her. Such is the nature of the variegated human world. One has good intentions and the other exploits it for evil, responding in a despicable way, which prompts the former to ask himself or herself questions. It’s important to remember the principle: “What’s mine -- is mine; what’s theirs -- is theirs.” My part is to want to promote good and to refrain from expecting a result; the response of others -- is theirs. It isn’t helpful, and it also complicates life to do an audit of another person. On the other hand, it doesn’t pay to be innocent to the point of stupidity in a world which is liable to be hostile and replies to good deeds with something hurtful. Even excessive innocence apparently doesn’t promote good. So, what is to be done?

  When a baby comes into the world, the newborn symbolizes, among all the other nice things, innocence and purity. This seems to be fairly universal. Different languages have described this with rich expressions. When babies start talking, their innocence is delightful. As they grow up, gradually this innocence is replaced. They learn about the world, becoming a little rough around the edges. Sometimes this is gradual, sometimes faster, according to the compulsions of life and the distresses that they face. What comes in place of innocence? Painful experience, waking up from innocent illusions. We understand that the world is complicated and we’re no longer behaving with childish innocence. The rough world in which we live is a predatory world offering little respite, and the beautiful vision is blurred. But is this where our development stops? We started as innocents and have turned into coarse-minded realists?

  The Graceway suggests another possibility. It is possible to grow out of this coarseness. In which direction? In a certain sense, growing up is like returning to innocence, but it isn’t really a return, more like discovering a different innocence. In the case of the baby, it was the innocence of not knowing, rebuffed by experience in the course of growing up. In the Graceway, we reveal an innocence that comes out of deep knowledge, that sees the person beyond the hurtful and exploitative behavior. This knowledge wants to be non-dependent on the other person, and certainly doesn’t want to be dependent on someone who acts out of weakness. Knowledge based on faith, directed towards faith, and seeing the world in the color of faith. For example, faith in loving grace as a human possibility, and the knowledge that when we behave with grace, we’re encountering it even if someone is trying to exploit us, to harm us, or to steal from us.

  Promoting good suggests a new order of preferences for the world as well as for us in the world. Sometimes, what seems like exploitation or injury according to the normal order of this rough and combative world, keeping its borders, and engrossed in rampant self-centeredness, isn’t perceived as such in the eyes of grace, which eludes the control of self-centeredness. When our view of the world changes and grace turns into the basic principle by which we weigh what is appropriate for us, we see beyond the disappointments and the fears of self-centeredness, gaining inner freedom even within a world that seems hostile.

  But, and it’s a very big but, not for a moment do we mean that we should allow someone to hurt us and carry on hurting us. This doesn’t promote good in the world, far from it. Promoting good means striving not to be stupid in innocence, but to be innocent out of understanding and experience which sees beyond any injury. We work with a common sense understanding and the sensitivity of intuition even in the hub of a hostile world, and we watch over ourselves in the midst of it. We’ll prevent others from hurting us, but we’ll strive very hard not to make a story out of it and definitely not let it control us. One of the ways of doing this is to distinguish between the person and the behavior -- a person in adversity, in the grip of self-centeredness, sometimes behaves in a reprehensible way and responds to good with evil. If, because of this, we lose for a moment the observant innocence of wisdom, then it’s possible that the evil act of the other will deeply hurt us. But this act can’t hurt us in that way if we don’t allow it, if we don’t become a part of it. Therefore, the recommendation is to carry on with the good intentions, work out of sensitivity to the situation and out of healthy intuition, without expecting results -- and with the confidence that the negative experience emanating from abusive behavior has no substance and can’t hurt us. In the final analysis, we’re left with the good that we’re seeking and aspiring to promote.

  Until we reach a ripe old age, we shall promote good to the best of our ability, by conscious choice and with joy.

  TOOL 12

  Living the Spirit

  Life of the spirit is expressed through daily activity directed towards the spirit.

  Let’s start with a moment of silence. We’ll listen to the silence and let everything that isn’t silence melt away gradually. If voices come to our ears, we’ll let them go without listening to them and they’ll subside into the silence. We’ll carry on with the silence, for a moment living it in full. … Let’s call ourselves to mind, shortly before we began practicing the various tools. We’ll see moments characteristic of us. … Let’s call to mind the process that we have experienced with the aid of the tools, and ask if anything in us has changed? The answer will arise intuitively, and we’ll listen to it. … Back to the silence. … Thank you.

  Practicing in the spirit

  Living the spirit, the twelfth tool, guides us towards a pragmatic and simple synthesis of spiritual intentions in daily life, a synthesis in which we learn to live with feet planted firmly on the ground while our heads are spiraling upwards to meet the spirit. An important part of being human is living a full life, a life of activity, liberty and love. By means of the free and loving activity, we experience humanity and with its help, we can cope properly with the challenges of our lives as human beings. Daily, regular activity can be directed at one time towards one thing, at another time towards something else. Living the spirit means that daily activity is directed towards the spirit, dedicated to the spirit, searching for the spirit, guided by the spirit, and finding the spirit. Where is it found? In the activity itself
. The ideal is that the activity, the intention, the spirit, and even the active person are one thing, one thing that is free, that lives love. Even if we haven’t reached this place yet, if we aim high, beyond the world of regular daily activity, to the best of our ability in each situation, there is a destination. The high aspiration finds expression in the active world in which we live and function. Activity is the “what” and intention directed towards the spirit determines the “how.” In fact, this is the direction in which all the other tools have been guiding us, as we shall see in a little while, when we summarize them from the particular perspective of living the spirit, but before that, we’ll describe practices that help us to live the spirit in an active way.

  The first practice is meditation. Over recent years, researchers have pointed to the positive changes that occur with those who have practiced meditation on a regular basis. For example, several years ago, I was personally involved in examining the changes experienced by convicts who practiced Vipassana meditation in prison, and the findings were encouraging; prisoners went into a lasting change process that was reflected in their relationship with other prisoners and members of their families. But no scientific work, however good it may be, can encompass the depth and the scope of the positive changes that occur in us when we meditate regularly. Usually, scientific research touches on the physical, mental, and social levels, and it can’t penetrate, by definition, anything that transcends these levels. Personal experience can do this. There’s a big difference between researching something like meditation and experiencing it regularly.

  How does one meditate? The procedure is very simple -- we don’t need to climb mountains, seek isolation in a cave, or build a special room for the purpose -- we simply need to find a quiet place in which we can sit comfortably without disturbing others and without others disturbing us, without too many distractions in the vicinity. Regular practitioners often keep a cushion which they find comfortable, place it on a mattress and then sit with legs folded in oriental fashion -- the half-lotus or full lotus position. The important thing is that the practice is regular, and the style of sitting is secondary. At the beginning of the process we’ll sit in silence, focusing our consciousness while leaving behind everything that’s usually in there, and preparing it for the practice. We should set ourselves a timer which will signal the end of the meditation period and sit in the stillness with eyes half-open or fully open. Meditation is done by focusing on the theme of the meditation, which can be “absolute purity” (suggested by Shlomo Kalo) -- simply repeating these words to ourselves, without interpretation or understanding or giving them a form. This can be done in synchronization with breathing -- for example, taking in a breath of air and repeating “absolute purity,” then exhaling while repeating “absolute purity.” At a certain stage, we’ll become aware of the rhythm of the heartbeat, and we can synchronize respiration with the pulse and with “absolute purity.” Naturally, in the course of the process, and especially if someone is practicing meditation for the first time, thoughts will arise incessantly, and sometimes particularly good ideas will appear; there will be feelings too, fantasies and sensations. We’ll hear noises that will draw our attention, maybe we’ll see something, or smell something. All this is natural. As it arises, so it subsides. We’ll get rid of everything that comes into our minds, without developing it, without analyzing it or holding on to it, but we’ll just let it go with the repetition of the phrase, “absolute purity.” We’ll strive to practice meditation without examining ourselves and asking whether we have succeeded in the exercise and to what extent -- in a fundamental sense, the only meditation that hasn’t worked is the one we haven’t practiced. As long as we sit in that posture, aiming to refrain from moving and continuing until the signal is given, despite the confusion in our minds -- everything is fine. In the course of the practice, it is advisable to remind ourselves to repeat the theme of the meditation from time to time, and say, “absolute purity” to ourselves. That is all it takes.

  What is recommended is to incorporate meditation into our daily routine -- twice a day, early in the morning, as soon as we wake up, and in the afternoon or early evening, setting aside time that will be dedicated to meditation: if possible, twice a day, with each session lasting half an hour. It’s worthwhile rising earlier than usual in the morning to find a quiet time for meditation, before the whole house gets into the morning rush. In the course of the day, we’ll know in advance when there will be free time available for the practice of meditation and we can include it in our daily plan. If we are away from home, we may remember that meditation can be practiced anywhere: in a public park, in a stationary vehicle or in motion (as long as someone else is driving), in the office, or wherever we happen to be; the important thing is that we practice it regularly. Regular practice creates a lasting influence, effecting a change that will grow deeper with time.

  To the regular practice of meditation in the course of the day we may add a practice related to it, when our consciousness is scattered or vacant, to go back and repeat the words “absolute purity.” Such repetition gives a different perspective on the everyday, which includes the outlook of the spirit and the yearning for it. Looking at the world out of “absolute purity,” engaging with the world, we strive to keep the mind in a state of “absolute purity.” This is a modeling of spiritual focus in the context of terrestrial, daily activity, which helps us to minimize mental confusion and the risk of being overwhelmed by terrestrial practicalities. It also helps us to remember the horizon of the spirit when we are engrossed in earthly tasks. Our personal abilities and talents in the practical world are dedicated to the spirit and are at the disposal of our spiritual journey, made in the course of everyday activity. When we start to experiment, we see that incorporating “absolute purity” into our daily routine reinforces the aspiration to be the grace that we want to encounter, and it also enables us to come closer to grace in our various encounters with life. The attempt to be grace becomes natural and obvious to us when we learn to find satisfaction in “absolute purity” -- and there is growing and continuing satisfaction when we experience it on a regular basis -- the grace in us becomes more open.

  When the order of our day is built around the practice of meditation, this is a statement pointing out what is important to us and also a step forward towards the realization of intent. We internalize a new order of preferences which becomes more stable as we leave behind restrictive habits, opinions, and conditionings that limit us.

  Another practice is prayer. The Serenity Prayer is prayer is an instrument of change, with an example of focus on a particular content. Without referring to the content, the prayer itself is a tool and action for change. It makes no difference whether we’re accustomed to inserting prayer into our lives or it’s still strange to us, and even our faith isn’t important here, just the action. Faith grows out of action. Prayer is focused activity, which, like meditation, helps us to live in the world when we observe it and watch life through the eyes of the spirit.

  Every one of us can choose a short line from a prayer that suits us, that speaks to us, and from time to time take a short break from everyday life and repeat the line from the prayer. The Serenity Prayer, for example, is a version of prayer that has significance conforming to the Graceway. We can also insert into our lives another version of a prayer; it is less advisable to invent a personal version. Praying is creating a rare connection between our consciousness and something that exists beyond it. To formulate a prayer of our own is liable to admit our self-centeredness into it, and this will shape the prayer for its own purposes. It is preferable to look for accepted prayers of the kind that appear in religious or spiritual books of various kinds, written by people who competed successfully with their self-centeredness, and choose a version that resonates with us and we can connect with. One of the possibilities is to find a suitable excerpt from the Book of Psalms, in which there’s an abundance of prayers applicable to almost every situation. W
e can also look to other sources. The suggestion is to choose one sentence, preferably short and to the point, and “activate” it from time to time, especially when something invades our consciousness and entices us into an undesirable place. The sentence that we choose helps to cleanse the mind and brings us back to the intentions of the spirit. The sentence can also accompany our everyday activity, enabling us to point it in the direction of the spirit.