- Working out your own salvation diligently
By turning attention to the voices that takeover our lives, we can see the causes of suffering, and by bringing that suffering into the light of our inherent kindness and wisdom, we are freed from it. That is the process of using awareness practice to wake up and end suffering. We accomplish this in part through conscious mentoring.
The Mentor is the centered awareness that allows us to observe and acknowledge conditioning without indulging in a self-hating reaction to it.
We become our own Mentor when we practice loving acceptance of whatever we discover in ourselves.
The Buddha taught that we each have one person to save: ourselves. We are told his final words were "You must work out your own salvation diligently." That can sound daunting until we understand what's involved in the process. What we are being guided to do is cease to identify with the ego-self, thereby recognizing our Authentic Nature, an expression of the Intelligence That Animates.
From that place of conscious, compassionate awareness, we embrace into unconditional love the incarnation that has believed itself to be a separate ego self.
The movement from being mentored to being the Mentor is "how" a person can "work out your own salvation diligently."
--Excerpted from What You Practice Is What You Have by Cheri Huber
The movement from being mentored to being the Mentor can be practiced through The Two-Handed Recording and Listening Exercise.
- Here's how Two-Handed Recording works:
- Hold the recorder in your right hand and talk as you would to a close friend or a therapist. Without censoring, express what you are feeling. Say everything you ever wanted about what you are going through.
- Stop the recorder. Breathe. Sit with the experience. Then, holding the recorder in your left hand, listen to the recording, giving it your full attention. Really listen.
- Keeping the recorder in the left hand, record whatever comes up that could assist and comfort the person you just listened to.
- Listen to the recording you just made.
- Audio
The Guide describes the exercise here.
- Exploration
A practice view of this exercise: Musings article
- It Works