Reality
Lately I have been struggling with a couple of different pursuits in my brain. I was able to articulate it last night with a friend and thought I would capture it here now. My tension seems to be the idea of manifesting reality, or co-creating reality in Wayne Dyer's phrasing, and simple meditation. The thing is I see these two avenues of my brain as being not so much different roads as more cul-de-sacs on the same street. My problem it seems comes from the desire to manifest for my family an existence that is comfortable, and of course this means lots of things but mostly it means this idea of bringing forth, of co-creating. Now over on the other cul-de-sac is the hope of enlightenment and manifesting compassion and wisdom. Right away I see that both things involve manifesting. The idea that I Am that I can bring into being what I tell myself I want. But what I have found is that I want is the thing that is confusing the picture. I have desire and I want to be aware and accept abundance, and I want to be non-attached, not have aversion. My friend, who is wise and knows me and that I have kids and that I want the best for them brought to my attention that my kids have their own karma and regardless of what I bring into being they will still have their karma to deal with. I know that already just by being born in North America they have material wealth beyond most of the world. Where my concerns are music lessons, dance lessons blah, blah, blah , a large percentage of the world is looking for their next meal.
So what is my problem? The problem is still one of ego and attachment. The thing is I can manifest reality, the issue is my conditioning to think that material well being is the road to happiness.

Emptiness
I'm reading The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet by John Blofeld right now, along with Eye to Eye by Ken Wilber. I love both of these books. The subtitle of the Eye to Eye is The Quest for the New Paradigm, and it certainly does the job.
But back to Blofeld for a minute. Last night I read a line about visualization, particularly the tantric practice of becoming the deity that you are visualizing. Blofeld contextualized this by saying that visualization is something that is quite foreign to the western mind and that usually the idea of manifesting reality is seen as hocus pocus. But he says the idea is really based on the concept of emptiness, that the meditators emptiness and the deities emptiness are one and so that is why it is possible to become that visualized deity. I just found that one statement to very profound, put the book down and started meditating!

Learning Organizations
I'm developing an interest in learning societies. Otto Scharmer has developed a very clear model that shows the incredibly valuable connection between transforming both self and the culture. Another good book that I'm reading which has been around for a while is The Dance of Change. A bunch of co-authors on this one but Peter Senge is the one that stands out. Now this book is more specifically about business culture but I find it very encouraging reading these ideas from top business leaders and the insights that they have had that point to the benefit of decentralizing authority.
Change is inevitable but it seems that organizations truely resist change and this is what can cause so many problems within organizations.
One change that I've brought to my approach of going into meetings where I usually feel nervous or appathetic is to keep the wisdom mantra in single pointed concentration. It helps me apply myself more to the problem and be more attuned to energy issues within the group that is meeting.