The Mandala of Being

When the mind is in the future, the body experiences worry or hope; when it is in the past, the body registers guilt, nostalgia, or regret.

Male entitlement means an inferior maleness that stands beside a diminished femaleness. This inferior masculine and diminished feminine cocreate each other. We do not yet even know what human consciousness is with an empowered feminine and an empowered (versus entitled) masculine. If we dedicate ourselves to uncovering and actualizing this potential, then we will have begun to create a truly profound legacy for future generations. But for this to happen, both men and women must risk a great deal of discomfort in the depths of their relationships. We will have to move to our now-ness and make an enormous space for trust that the new relationship we are being called to is more intelligent than we are yet capable of perceiving and accepting. We have begun to invite the potential for male-female relationships in which the self of women is not derivative of the male self, and where men are likewise able to start from something more truly of their essence. However, as we lose the familiarity and security of traditional gender roles, great confusion and pain will inevitably continue, as will power struggles. But if we persevere, we may also find profoundly beautiful and deeply transformative love.

Only in the present moment do we have any true power over the future, for if we experience ourselves as full and whole now, we intrinsically trust whatever the future may bring. We do not exercise this power with thought alone, but with the full strength of our awareness and the whole of our beings. True change comes about through the nonreactive gaze of attention that deepens us into the present and thereby opens us to a new vision of life.