Yesterday, at an outdoor festival while offering acupuncture, someone hesitantly mentioned their nervousness about receiving acupuncture. “Is it something spiritual? I’m not interested in anything like that.” “Acupuncture is Chinese medicine,” I told her ” inserting stainless steel needles into the body in order to move energy. It could be a spiritual experience, but that’s up to you.”
For many years, this blog has often revolved around themes of wilderness adventure – backpacking in Taiwan, Olympic National Park or the Cascade Mountains. Time and knee surgeries are catching up with me though and those adventures are no longer physically possible. I must gracefully allow them to slip into the past, without holding on to yesterday. In one sense, the essence of spirituality, is learning to let go.
Regardless of the outer scenery, life has richness and meaning at all times. Each individual is the only one who can define what brings deep meaning to their life. Are we asking those questions, daily? Who am I? What am I doing here? Why am I doing the things that I do? What is true happiness? How could I better balance my inner and outer goals in order to experience a more stable inner peace. To undertake spiritual adventures, one need not be a seasoned athlete. Even if we are physically crippled, we are still capable of soaring to spiritual heights. 
When I first moved to Seattle, I prided myself in being a weekend warrior. I toiled away 40 hours a week at a job which failed to inspire me. In retrospect, part of my struggle was of my own making. My attitude was entirely self-centered rather than oriented towards serving others. I was singularly focused on getting through the day, watching the minutes and hours tick away on the clock, so that I could collect my twice monthly paycheck and be somewhere else. Every Saturday and Sunday, I found temporary relief from a depressing job at a bank, climbing mountains, paddling down wild rivers and surfing at the open ocean, only to have to face the bleakness of Monday morning. Life was an emotional roller coaster that played out in weekly cycles, but in relationships with lovers, friends, and family. Spirituality is about expanding the sphere of awareness beyond the narrow focus on me, I, mine.
Thriving in modern life isn’t easy. We constantly face difficult choices and situations about family, housing, employment, finances, navigating pandemics and climate breakdown – to mention a few. Regardless of what happens on the outside, if we can be mindful that every moment of our lives is an opportunity to learn, to act altruistically rather than selfishly, to let go of the past and learn to be present, an inner garden of abundant peace and joy begins to blossom.
It takes time to effect deep change in the heart. But every time we face our inner struggles and emotional pain with awareness, we act with more courage and certainty of our goals. Our full potential as awakened beings begins to come into focus.
Beginning Sept. 30, 4 Tibetan Buddhist nuns from India will build a sand mandala at UCUCC church in Seattle’s University district. 
Buddhist mandalas are visual representations of the enlightened mind of wisdom and compassion. A sand mandala is created by first blessing the location with many prayers for the pacification of local spirits as well as for the cessation of suffering for all sentient beings. With minds concentrated on love and altruism, they measure out tiny amounts of sand in metal funnels that pour the sand into intricate patterns representing the abode of a deity and his or her inner spiritual realizations. After several days representing hundreds of hours of work and prayer, the mandala is completed. The accumulated merit is then dedicated for the eventual enlightenment of all sentient beings and then 
the sand is ceremoniously swept up into a colorful pile representing impermanence – all conditioned phenomena arise and pass away. The sand (composed of natural flower dyes and crushed marble) is then dumped into a body of water symbolizing the spread of this enlightened energy throughout the universe.
Is it spiritual or just exotic art? Only you can decide. My acupuncture clinic will be closed on Monday, Sept. 30 and have limited hours on Wednesday and Friday. Please plan in advance.
In other CommuniChi news – do you have guests coming from out of town who need a healing place to stay in Seattle? Please consider sharing a link to my new AirBNB – this space was the former CommuniChi acupuncture clinic (now upstairs). It’s a fully private two bedroom apartment with kitchenette, outdoor steam sauna, and private courtyard, all infused with years of massive quantities of chi. But it’s not spiritual or anything like that….wink.
