Deliverance

I am passionate about the personal path, your personal path, to calming down. If you make a lifetime study of discovering and practicing various ways to calm yourself, you will find something that the Lotus Sutra calls 'deliverance'. When you calm yourself down, deliverance is there for you. It is also in genius and inspiration, like when you have an unexpected great idea. It is there in art, in sport and in war. It is there in crisis.

People get addicted to it in peak experiences, like thrill seeking. I used to find it working in dangerous situations. While deescalating violence, I felt connected to my past, and capable in ways I did not feel in regular life. I felt the energy of deliverance flow through me, and only felt good about myself when fulfilling my superman complex.

Then I discovered how to gradually, gradually grow calmer. Not to be calm, but calmer. In that space - the open space of calm - I found deliverance; a sense of faith in us, humanity, and more than that, in life itself. Deliverance is in the spirit of kindness, innovation, beauty, and of hope.

There is no failing the forty day challenge, because the challenge is to simply be a calmer you. A you with more courage and more willingness to be just a little bit more yourself. Deliverance is there when you feel in flow, not trying, but simply being you.