STATEMENT OF TRUTH

A truth once gained is the loss of innocence.

The processes of self-inflicted denial and delusion are like old, warm, woolly sweaters that we wore to protect us from the cold, harsh, hostile world we live in. When the truth is revealed for what it really is, those old familiar sweaters can never go back on over our souls and fit properly as they once did.

The innocence of our childlike ignorance is lost the moment we come to understand that we do not rule the universe or any of its inhabitants, no matter how hard we might try.

Much of the human condition of suffering hangs on seeing or not seeing this simple truth; for suffering is a state of mind, not a condition of existence.

To begin a soul-searching journey is to begin to take our rightful place in this universe. There are requirements, one of which is that we must come to terms with this simple truth or forever be bonded to a hell of our own making.

Freedom from the bonds of our past is freedom from the bonds of our own way of thinking. Thus, freedom from the prison of our own minds is freedom from the process of resistance, from a demon called against.

The walls of the prison of our own minds and all the processes contained therein are always made up of us against something.

Our very survival seems to be at stake.

This process is always filled with resistance and deep-seated fear.

But ...

Experience Has Taught Me
As I Give Over My Need To Be Against, My Need To Hide, Then I Will Naturally Merge With All That Is … The Way Of Things …

NDT taken from Experience Has Taught Us 175 Missing Pieces ...

Cheap Forgiveness

What Scott M Peck Calls “Cheap Forgiveness”



I, like Peck, have noticed that many people come into the therapeutic process and announce as quickly as they can ... that ... yes ... they had difficult childhoods, and ... yes ... their parents did the best they could and that they have forgiven them for all of it.

But if the individual gives the therapeutic process enough room and time they always discover they have not forgiven anyone at all ... they are using their perspective as a diversion away from their legitimate pain.

This is what is sometimes called the Egyptian River Syndrome ... DE-NIAL.

There is a period of time where the individual will feel like they are putting their loved ones on trial. For them it really does seem that way. In actual fact, what they are doing is coming to terms with what really happened.

This is not about whom the parents or the family members are or were, or even who the individual is ... it is about what really happened ... it is about a system that really did not work ... it simply is the truth of it all ...

Most often as not it is the system that did not work.

We naturally want to assess blame ... blame helps us defend us from our legitimate suffering.

But once one get past that blaming thing, and just face the way it was ... It Is In This Space of No Active Defence Strategy Where Healing Happens ...

Blame Is An Old School Dysfunction ...
When Control Breaks Down ...
Use Blame ...
So When You Stop And Think About It,
Cheap Forgiveness Is Not So Cheap.
It Can Cost Us Our Life ...

NDT ... concept taken from Further Along the Road Less Travelled

Experience Has Taught Us ... Three Keys

First Key

EXPERIENCE has taught us that finally we can step out into the world and experience life on life’s terms. That seems to be what is called for at this juncture, and doing it knowing full well that we don’t know and that we can’t imagine all that is, even though we are intrinsically part of all that is.

A part of things that we can’t even imagine, in places we could not conceive of, and in conditions that are beyond us.

But there it is, the answer, just sitting there, staring back at us.

Not the one we expected,

But An Answer Nonetheless.


Second Key

You came to this world singularly and unclothed. That is your path. The others that you encounter are here on the path with you … are on the same journey … but they can only serve as guideposts for you, and they can only provide you the opportunity to find your own blind spots, that's all.

There is a vast world of difference between solitude and loneliness … that is your discovery to make.

Third Key

It isn't just the pain in my body that really hurts, it's all the pains of my life that I have to pull away from; “that” which imprisons me in my impression of how I think life should be.

Me, beginning to see my feelings in me just as they are, brings me to a point of seeing just how little time have I ever given to me having real feelings in my life and those real feelings included initially my pain, both physical and psychological.

NDT Taken from: Experience Has Taught Us 175 Missing Pieces

Three Faces of Pain ... Life and Life’s Pain is the Teacher

I had been journaling for a number of years ... and supplying handouts to my clients on a weekly basis in our group sessions ... in 2001 ... I decided to format them into a work book form ... thus Zen and the Art of Walking Lightly was generated ...


Hidden Pain
























Obvious Pain



















Deep Internal Pain















Life and Life’s Pain Is The Teacher … for those who have passed by me and attempted to notice, almost to a person, they discovered that life and the ensuing pain acted like a fierce and loving teacher that reminded them again and again to go beyond themselves and their own preconceived notions into a deeper investigation of self, and to begin to let this moment be as it is … to simply observe what arises in the fullness of what’s next that needs to be addressed.

NDT From Zen and the Art of Walking Lightly

Life's Opening Thesis

For The Truth Of The Matter

Shall Reveal Itself

To Those

Who Have The Courage

To Look

And Have The Willingness

To See What They Are Looking At.


NDT

I Had New Shoes … by KML ... taken from Into The Light

KML is a client ... and she had this experience walking home from work one day.

I Had New Shoes…

I had new shoes. Not brand new, but fairly new. I had worn them a few times and thought they were worn in enough to wear to work. They weren’t. It takes me 30 minutes to walk to work and by the time I arrived I had a blister on my foot. Since I spend most of my day sitting in front of a computer, the blister didn’t bother me much. But each time I walked through the office I wondered if I should find a bandage. It was a busy day and by the time I left work at the end of the day there was still no bandage.

About a block from the office I was in real pain. I thought about catching a bus, but it was one of those crisp, clear winter days, and I was so looking forward to the walk home after being cooped up inside all day. I decided to forge on. I could take it easy, slow down, hell, maybe even take advantage of the opportunity to go the scenic route. So I changed direction and hobbled on, and hobble I did. The pain was searing.

Just when I thought I couldn’t take another step, I turned the corner and there in front of me lay the harbour with the sun setting behind the hotels that line its edge. I was at once engulfed by the beauty of the sight. The colours, light, architecture and water created a scene that was overwhelming and tears filled my eyes. I felt as if I had stepped inside a painting and had suddenly become part of it. In relation to the magnificence I was seeing, the pain in my foot seemed so insignificant that I was able to walk on.

I was surrounded by beauty and at the same time a part of it — and I knew there was nothing else but beauty. And I knew this as fact — as truth. I knew that what I was seeing was life as it should be seen – life as it truly is: colour, light, radiance — a spectacular world that was more than just three dimensions. I felt its intensity with every fiber of my being. I drank it in and I poured myself into it at the same time.

When I reached the edge of the harbour the sun disappeared behind the buildings and I felt a slight sinking. The light was fading and so was the intensity with which I was viewing the world. At that moment I had the urge to turn my head and look up in the opposite direction. There in the air just above me was a blue heron, gliding past in complete silence. I was again overwhelmed and began sobbing at the beauty, the magnificence that was God. I quickly looked around and realized that no one else had seen the bird there in the dim light of sunset. To me his silent flight had been a message from God,. and when I looked in the direction he had flown, he was gone.

I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing so I didn’t try. I wondered what people thought as I walked past them sobbing.. They couldn’t know that I was seeing God and he was seeing me and that we were one.

As I continued to walk the light gradually dimmed and as it did the feelings subsided. What had at first seemed like a picture had become my reality, and now what I saw seemed like a black & white photograph: two dimensional and without colour. I felt strange at the flatness of it and desperate at the loss of radiance. A depression swept over me as I returned to my “reality.” How could I get that feeling back? Where had it gone? Where was that world I had just visited? How could I get back to it? I have glimpsed that world more than once since, but just for a moment each time before something inside me closed the door to it. But I know it is there.

KML ...


NDT

On Allowing God To Operate in Your Life: The God Box Concept ... taken from Zen and the Art of Lost and Found

Understanding two things as I enter into this exercise …

First: that it is reasonable for me to expect an answer through the course of events over the next day or so … it may not come from the source that I might expect it to come from … but my requests will be answered …

Second: I will do this exercise every night for a period of 3 months … placing my five requests in a God Box beside my bed … and letting go of the responsibility of drumming up an answer myself.


What five things do I need God to answer for me tomorrow?


1

2

3

4

5

My Zen Books

Zen and the Art of Walking Lightly














Zen and the Art of Lost and Found














Zen and the Art of Seeing Clearly, Perhaps for the First Time

Zen and the Art of Lost and Found

Statement of Truth

A Truth Once Gained Is The Loss of Innocence.

There were times in my life when I began to suspect that God had favorites and I was not one of them ... Always standing on the sidelines noticing that "they" got more or "they" got and I didn't ... That would frustrate me to no end ... Always wondering why "they" did and I didn't!

"Why" became an incessant tape in my mind ... always asking and never answering... Me, always imagining that something was wrong with me ... that, as it turned out, was one of my greater hurdles to over come. Getting past the concept that I had imagined that God actually had favorites ... that I was not included on His list.

Time would prove to be my mentor on this matter ... but first I had to come to terms with knowing ... where to look.

You see my point was that I considered me to be a "non- special" ... the undercurrents of that process could only be maintained if I kept a whole segment of life and society in a place called “special”. The truth of the matter was ... as I was to come to learn ... God really doesn't care who is special and who is not ... that is not His game ... His game is to provide the opportunity to come to terms with being here initially ... then develop something out of the gift of being here ... the one He gave ... all done whilst here on the face of this planet during an undetermined time frame.

On the other hand my game from the outset, was to maintain my ability to hide away from the aforementioned task at hand ... while appearing to be doing something about the same task at hand ... all smoke and mirrors on my end.

I developed the game of "special and non-special"... it was a "hand-me-down" ... one my parents utilized, and most of my neighbours used ... in fact, just about everyone, ... it was something that was preached from the pulpit, and something that was taught at my schools by some very well meaning if not miss-guided souls who really felt it was their duty to bunch us all into a line and conform us into the realities of life as they saw it ... if you actually took the time to follow the timeline that goes with this style of thinking ... their parents before them had passed it on and that went back for generations well into antiquity... the truth of the matter is that it was such a natural thing to do that really we did not notice we were doing it as we did it.

Prisoners of our own minds ... and held there by the devices of habit, socialization and culture.

You see the problem; it boiled down to not being able to see the problem. Why? Because one of the classic symptoms of the problem is that it tells the beholder of the problem that he or she really does not have a problem ... "in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary".

It Is An Insidious Soul-Robbing Thing
When I first noticed this, my strategy became to do one of two things ... "either ignore it" ... hope it would go away and go back into hiding ... that was always the strongest pull for me ... or to be responsible ... and begin the arduous task of growing up ... be prepared to leave Never Never Land ... just me and the universe and God ... working things out in some undetermined fashion ... What it seemed to be ... was me left totally to my own devices ... initially ... those devices were slim ... only the ones I arrived with ... as time went by my device bag grew ... it became the things that I had either gleaned or I learned from and with others ... who by the way also had discovered that they were here for some deeper purpose ... for most, this deeper purpose was still not clear ... but to find it we all had to come to the conclusion that we had to get off our proverbial duffs and do something with our lot in life.

So ... we banded together ... sort-of ... for periods of time and began the business of getting on with our spiritual journey.

A Short Lesson in Life

There was a time in my life when the business of my “Terrible Dailyness” was nearly unbearable ... my problem was life didn't stop coming at me but I had run out of tools ...

I am sure there are many who can relate to this ...

David B, a very near and dear friend at the time, told me very bluntly that he loved me dearly but his plate was full so ... What he was telling me was he did not have the capacity to listen to me any longer ... I was locked into a cycle of The Art of the Fine Whine ... and for anyone who has ever had to listen to this, its not a pleasant thing ... it ... the pain of it all is over whelming for all concerned ...

It held me tightly in it's grasp ...

Now David had pointed this out to me in 1979, I'm a slow learner I guess, but it was now the mid 1990"s and the pain fianlly moved me to begin the journey of turning inward ... the meditative experience of The Door prompted me too and I was journaling ... A Prayer For All Seasons actually surfaced in my writing ... and for me that prayer had passion, a deep, deep passion ... so I prayed it and prayed it ...

If this was it ... I was giving it all I got ...

I was serious ... I wanted out of this mess I was in ... and slowly my life started to move in different directions ... not one direction but several and different from my Normal ... Normal is what I depend on just to get by with in my dealings with my day to dayness ... but, as I was to discover ... it is not necessarily what was/is healthy and or good for me ... there was a discovery locked away in there for me ... It took awhile to notice that one but I did ... As I was learning, My Best Thinking Was Not My Best Friend ...

No Miraculous Instant cures just yet ... just a new direction to go exploring in ... finally there was a hint on a way to go ...

NDT ...

A Prayer for All Seasons

To be honest, I’m not sure to whom I’m praying.
Maybe I'm talking to myself.
To be honest, I can't take it anymore.
Oh yes, I could still do it…at least for a while longer…but I don't know what I feel like.
I wanna quit hurting.
I wanna quit hurting me and being my own worst enemy.
I wanna quit hurting my family, my friends, my neighbours.
I just wanna quit all this stuff.
To be honest, I don't know how, and I don't know what to do.
I believe this is what they call lost.
I’m not sure if anyone or anything is listening, but if someone or something is listening, please help.
Come find me…
I'm hiding in plain sight.

NDT

On the Subjects of Open-Mindedness and Acceptance

The following passage came from a client's journaling experience ... Carol (CD)is somewhere in either Mexico or Southern California last I heard and having the time of her life ... in her travel home called "Ruby". Her story is really quite incredible and maybe someday she'll tell it ...

I extracted this from my Book Zen and the Art of the 5 Prinicples of the Journey ...

The photo is not of Carol (CD) ... just another free spirit like Carol ... somewhere in the south of France.

How much more compassion, understanding and joy would exist in our world if open-mindedness and acceptance would replace narrow-mindedness and fear.

So much is overlooked, so many opportunities lost by limiting one’s interaction with those perceived as different, unimportant, inferior or unworthy, as well as those seen as better than, superior, or untouchable.

Three steps to missing the boat when it comes to expanding horizons, improving interactions and communication and gaining knowledge and insight are:

ASSUME, JUDGE and LABEL.

Both the judge and the judged suffer loss as a result of this behaviour.
One need not agree with another’s views.

However, one must practice acceptance.

Our World is multi-facetted. The inhabitants must be versatile. Remaining enclosed within a circle of likeminded peers is choosing to place limitations upon oneself. These limitations amount to insecurity, ignorance and fear; so very much more is made available with open-mindedness and acceptance. C.D.

NDT

This Door Has A History

This Door Has A History ... A client of mine from the mid 1990's brought it in as a gift ... her way of saying thank you, I guess ... Her husband made it for her and she gave it to me.

Her husband was moved by the profound affect of her experience with this process of self discovery...

It sits on my desk now as a quiet reminder that inner experience is both very powerful and very necessary.

Neil

Six Principles

There are concepts one needs to come to terms with as they move deeper into life ... the metaphoric passage through The Door opens these concepts up to you ...

First: Know this ... there are other truths that are as significant but this one holds the key ... Your Curiosity Is The Most Powerful Tool You Have ...

Second: Know this ... Your Imagination Can Create Realities ... In fact your imagination is the force that actually manifests the reality you live in... Sometimes that may be hard to imagine but true none the less ... if you are paying close attention to this idea you will notice the intensity of power that lay in the depths of this concept ...

Third: Have Respect For Those You Know And Those You Don't ... This Means You Too. Respect is far more valuable than any reward life can offer ...

Fourth: Don't Put Limitations On Yourself ... don't define you because of what has happened to you ... there are many who will ... but that's them and their problems ... their toxicity ... so don't you do it too ... Remember this, you are far more than you can possibly imagine ... So Don't Bet Against Yourself!

Fifth: Take Risks ... it is simple. Life is a place that is so complex you don't stand a chance of seeing it let alone experiencing it if you are on your duff playing it safe...

Sixth: This next concept is important: Failure Has To Be A Reasonable Option Every Time You Consider Moving Out Into The World ... Why? Because it is in exploring and risk taking where the richness of life resides ... it is the journey not the destination ... and to take the journey envolves a leap of Faith especially if you have previously failed ... Going Through That Door

Neil

There is a Door

There is a mythical door that EXITS this universe that my consciousness seems to be focused in.

This door does not appear at the end of some hallway or corridor of my mind, but in the great hall of my awareness. It is in the very center of that enormous place. For me it is a regular door, wooden with a large gold knocker on it.

Now the odd thing is this door is always facing me. No matter where I am in my consciousness, this closed door in the center of the great hall is facing me.

I really never noticed this before because I have been too busy working out my life and existence. It seems that I had to really slow down enough just to notice it there waiting for me.

So I will wonder aloud, I wonder if my "terrible dailyness" is a way that I use not to have to face the presence of this door and its passage to places and parts unknown.

There seems to be a complicity or a willingness on my end not to grow, not to know, not to notice, to stay stagnate and the same. This doorway now invites me to grow, and to know, but in doing so, I am afraid that I will have to give up all that I am familiar with. But I "now" know that I will not have to give up all that I know.

The key phrase here seems to be “I am afraid.” So having admitted that, I can look for the proof that I can venture through this door and not be torn to shreds.

Here is the proof, this door to the greater me is within me, not outside of me, and I now know that it will lead me to a greater understanding of who I am.

I also know that I will have to leave behind those things and people that I cling to for my false sense of security that I think I so desperately need.

So I can go through that door at any time IF; I want to make the journey, and I know that; the doorway has patience enough to wait out my fears, after all it has eternity on its side; but It will not give up its secrets unless I give over my resistance.

Neil

Neil (Douglas) Tubb (RCC)

In the early days before Neil was into any of this “stuff” he was a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security Service. He worked in Counter Espionage-“B”-ops (RIS, (Russian Intelligence Service, KGB and GRU) during what was considered the height of the cold war. He stepped out of that world just over two decades ago and into this world to search out his own past and his own ghosts and to dust off his own future.

Michael Poole, documentary film director/maker and author, in his Romancing Mary Jane: A Year In The Life Of A Failed Marijuana Grower (Greystone Books Publisher) described Neil as a “rumpled old sage of a guy who has experience with what he does.” Now Neil says that he is not exactly sure what Michael meant, but it sounded good at the time. Neil’s best description of himself is: a recovering or recovered alcoholic (depends on whose definition of recovery you want to work with), a husband, a father, a grandfather.

Born in St. Thomas Ontario in 1947, he was raised in the classic dysfunctional home (they meant well, but) . .. Zooming ahead—he was married, widowed, and re-married, divorced. Now lives with his cat Precious

Over the years he did everything from working in the RCMP, both in the Criminal Investigation Branch and Security Services, to chanting at a yoga ashram on Paradise Island (right beside Club Med . . . how handy). He taught at and was Director of Student Services at Twin Valley's School, Wardsville, Ontario (Alternative to the penal system for young offenders.)

Neil, along with a number of other people, were co-founders of Barnabas Center (Counseling services for street youth) in Edmonton, Alberta.

Neil is an active member of the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counselors, and he sat on the Standards And Ethics Committee. He is also a member of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation. Currently, Neil is in private practice as a clinical counselors specializing in Dissociative Disorders and the treatment of Post Trauma Stress.

Neil developed workshops on healing from trauma, on spiritual growth, the issues surrounding Co Dependency ... understanding the process of really healing is not a quick fixing thing with band aid solutions.

In his book Experience Has Taught Us --- 175 Missing Pieces Neil points out that if you can see the real monster that is quietly running your life ... what it is that you are really up against, then there is hope for recovery ... if not ... most stay lost in the Fantasy of their Reality ... repeating old cycles in a vain attempt to make something work that has no hope of working ...

The very true nature of the healing and recovery process at its most primal level is to be able to see what you have been blind to for most of your life ... When I can See It ... When I can Accept it ... (seeing and accepting are two different places in our consciousness) Then I can Fix it ...

For almost all of us ... the business of recovery, of dialogue, of socialization lay in this next simple sentence, This Is Not About Who I am, is It is About What Happened To Me ... What happened to me and my response to it is often as not the governing factor that creates the reality I believe I operate in today ... So it really boils down to What Can I Do To Make A Difference in My Life and Have the Life I Think I Want To Have ... Understanding one simple statement: My Best Thinking May Not Be My Best Friend.

Neil is a proponent of 12 steps, A Course in Miracles, and a number of other proven recovery processes. To day as well as operating his practice he is following his passion—writing, odd for a fellow who could not get out of an English class in high school with anything more than a C-.

Neil has written 11 books (10 published) on recovery, 2 being edited. He is working on writing a set of Novels ... a trilogy of cold war spy vs spy tales (2 complete and in editing and 1 in various stages of completion). The Recovery books are available on Amazon.com ...

Neil has authored, co-facilitated, and facilitated a number of different workshops and seminars on spiritual development and recovery:

Workshops

• The Door
• Meeting Your Higher Self
• The Home Coming
• Out Of The Past And Into The Present
• So You Think You’re Looking For Someone Do You?
• Learning to be Intimate
• Points to Ponder
• Workshop on themes developed in Experience Has Taught Us - 175 Missing Pieces
• Workshop on Intimacy ... 

Books

1. Experience Has Taught Us: 175 Missing Pieces
2. Experience Has Taught Us: Searching for the Willingness to Change
3. Zen and the Art of Walking Lightly
4. Zen and the Art of Lost and Found
5. Zen and the Art of Seeing Clearly Perhaps for the First Time
6. Zen and the Art of Five Principles of the Journey
7. A Step Four and Step Five guide
8. The Door
9. Into the Light: Co Dependency a Spiritual Journey
10. The Metaphor** ... incomplete
11. Sharbot A Spy Story**: in editing
12. Understanding Me While Being We 

Periodicals Articles
• Occam’s Razor: a Short Study 2007
• Co-dependency in the Work Place 1996
• Seven Deadly Sins of Co-Dependency 200 short essays on healing

Neil