The Bodhisattva: A Point in the Work


A Point in the Work

I studied the Work with Vernon Howard. This is not the Work of Bryon Katie but of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. It has never failed the serious student. It is said that one finds “a point in the Work.” It is hard to say exactly what that is, but it is the true north for the essential Self. It has kept me getting back up on the balance beam after every fall from grace. And there have been many.

Essence, is said, comes from the stars. It is that part of us that belongs to everything and nothing. It is in need of no lessons. But the ego is top-heavy with self-love or bottom-heavy with self-hatred and it is also blind as a bat. This is what we are linked with, like it or not.

The truth of our being needs no help. It stands alone in unity with every particle and wave. But that ego….let’s just say it is a tad childish. It takes everything and gives nothing. We all have it. It’s where all of the besetting sins occupy space. Mine is quite fond of making me feel ashamed whenever I am seen. And this can be in a good light or a bad light. It knows how to make me squirm with guilt and make impulsive choices that serve no one.

It is said that “The Work will find a way.” Indeed. The Work stood by me when I lost child and spouse. It supports me when I do something wrong for the ten thousandth time. Let us just hint at the idea that perhaps there is a circle of conscious humanity and Christ is the gatekeeper for this planet. Even that hint will cause a great uproar among the sleeping masses. They prefer the darkness of controversy and argument to the light within.

Vernon Howard said so many wise and startling things. He taught me how to gather and conserve vital energy, how to show myself mercy and to stop being so “accommodating.” He gave me that tidbit of advice in a dream after he had died. So I knew it was important. To accommodate the wrong thing is to sacrifice the Self, as he knew so well. I came from a family of codependents and I knew nothing else. I was a people-pleaser. And only God-consciousness has the strength to stop this bad habit.

The Work is endless in its applications. Simple and powerful, it focuses one to see the bad in order to see the good and vice versa. Both insights are necessary. As Dogen said, “To study the self is to study the way.” And so the Work lives on in those who are simply watching themselves live life. As Mr. G. said, “The light will heal us.”

Recycling the Rose


As a writer I am also a reader and vice versa. The circle is ever completing itself, the ouroboros eating its tail, the cosmos spiraling into itself and out again. Sometimes I remember that writers read and readers write.

I have a compost pile behind my iMac. It is made of my emotional upheavals. I shovel bits of them into my essays, thereby enriching the soil of what might be an otherwise stereotypical spiritual essay. We have all read enough of those.

Yesterday I wrote an essay about the mean streets of St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. At the last minute I pulled it, but it went faithfully into the compost pile. So when I write, the memories of pale, baldheaded children will be straight up against the beauty of a dozen yellow roses. That is how it goes. As Leonard Cohen sings, “Everybody knows.”

And we all have a sixth sense of the nutrients that we need if we are to survive spiritually. In my case, I need lots of Vitamin Be and See. The compost pile of sorrow builds up— faithfully watered by my tears. That way I can write about little pink socks and lovely teas complete with chocolate.

My daughter’s name was Laurie. She was a brother to my son Rob for only seven years. Do not think he has no sorrow even though he can no longer remember the sound of her voice. I don’t miss her consciously; but do not think I don’t resonate with every loss on the planet because she is not here. Do not think your compost pile of sorrow is not softening your life with great tenderness and beauty.

That tear you shed, it’s gift is to leaven the bread of the soul. That sigh, that rage, that undeniable loss? They are all leavening agents. So although I may be writing about sunlight, I am always adding a bit of shadow to the mix. I know you deeply get this. You’re nodding your head as you remember something you felt guilt or shame about. It went into the compost heap. It will be used in one way or another. Life is smarter than you are; it knows all about recycling.

Namaste.

Leonard Cohen and I and the Fingernail Moon


Simplicity turns the key that unlocks the heart. Oh, the intellect allows for a good rousing discussion now and then, but the heart retires early from such a tavern, as Rumi might say. The real wine cannot be decanted.

The intellect may ride around on a motorcycle inside a wire cage at the circus but the heart remains at home.

The brain may fizz with excitement over the latest craze but the heart flies solo over the fingernail moon.

My own heart gets worked up about the simplest things. It averts its face from the complex issues that unfold within the head.

It needs a good cry now and then about the state of the world. It is not a do-gooder by any means, however.

It understands the concept of wholeness simply by being whole.

My writer’s heart loves the blank screen so it can sing and rhyme and mess with time.

The brain goes off on so many tangents, all presenting themselves as real.

But the heart knows how to feel.

I tuck my heart in at night with the music of Leonard Cohen. Now there’s a man who knows the futility of the mind’s passage through the universe.

I am learning to leap through the loopholes with Leonard. Such fun we are having. Do come along for the ride.

I have never met Leonard. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t know me, either. And yet, and yet….

Who knows anything for sure, really?

Vicki Woodyard
Author of Life With A Hole In It: That’s How The Light Gets In

A Woman Called Vicki

“Anyway, Roshi and I were drinking a very good, very powerful Chinese liquor. Roshi was dozing off, and I didn’t think he was terribly interested in the recording process. But the next morning over breakfast, I asked him what he thought. He said, ‘Leonard, you should sing more sad.’ He meant for me to surrender to the emotions. To accept it.” ~Leonard Cohen

And so that is one thing I have deeply in common with Leonard. I, too, should write “more sad.” I have been pilloried for doing that, especially by the nondual community. Apparently, it is not the thing to do. But lest we forget, our emotions are God-given and channeled in the right direction, lead us directly into the light. But first we surrender to the darkness. Cohen is the master of that. He takes us, drives us, chauffeurs us, to a place of surrender so deep that the darkness is transmuted into light.

How else can I write about my life but honestly and scrupulously? Can one bury a child consciously? No, one is in a state of shock. To see a tiny body breathe no more, well, I wouldn’t recommend it to my worst enemy. To have to take the belongings of that small body home from the hospital would wreck the most sincere intention to be above it all. An unfinished bottle of root beer, a few flowers and the effluvia of the last days of a seven year old’s life. I am scarred and healed when I write of moments like this.

I blast out the words onto the blank screen, screaming at you to have some common sense about awakening, enlightenment and wisdom. Do not think these thirty-somethings can speak to your age-old experience of simply being with who and what you are in the moment. Take your courage in your hand and remain true to what is going on in your life. I dare you.

The light cannot be parcelled out in required doses called “satsang.” It offends the cosmos to think this would be remotely possible. Everything is happening to everybody at all times. Birth and death and everything in between are owned by us all. When I tell you that emotionally I have been reborn from death into life, you have no reason to believe me. We all lie.

Sometimes I sit and weep but at other times I am strong and untouched. And sometimes it doesn’t take much for me to just sit on the couch, turn on the TV and forget what a burden we human beings are asked to carry. The skeletal forms with their botoxed lips and grotesquely high heels become something to divert my attention from who I am and who I could be. A being of light, an immortal encased in the persona of a woman called Vicki.

Vicki Woodyard
Author, Life With A Hole In It