Photo by Manish Bansal/Flickr Creative Commons

I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness
the astonishing light of your own being.

– Hafiz

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I believe that all of us have a natural brilliance that is yearning to come out and be expressed in the daily activities of our lives – our work, our creativity, our relationships, our play, our worship – and to be seen by others. Seen not in a superficial, attention-getting way, but in the most authentic way possible.

In Buddhism, that natural brilliance is called “buddhanature,” our awakened self. It is luminous, it is radiant, it is our original nature before a whole lot of internal and external crap gets piled on it. This is what I like to call “Shining,” inspired by a wonderful song by Shawn Mullins called “Shimmer.”  Marianne Williamson also described it beautifully with these words:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

That natural luminosity, that “shining,” is there in all of us. But often we forget it or lose our way. When I talk about “shine no matter what,” I am talking about how we can find our way back to that state of natural brilliance.

How do we continue to bring forth the best in us – those qualities of compassion, wisdom, and love – even in the face of challenging and adverse circumstances?

They say we teach what we need to learn. I am no master of this by any means. I have a tendency to fall into despair and sinking mind, and to avoid embodying my own natural brilliance. I’ve had a pretty blessed life, but I can easily go to a place of seeing the glass half empty.

Perhaps some of it came from growing up with a father who had the opposite of the Midas touch. He could take the most neutral situation and turn it into something negative and ominous. I still remember Saturday mornings when we were excited about taking some family adventure, and he would turn to my mom and me and say, “Forget it. The day was half over.” That was at 9 am. Some of that rubbed off on me, and I am still trying to unlearn it!

So I am writing these words for myself as much as for you.

As I reflected on what it means to “shine no matter what,” I thought about people who are exemplars of that quality. If ever there was someone who practiced shining in the midst of many adversities, it is Helen Keller.

Helen lost her sight and hearing at the age of 18 months and lived in a world of silence and darkness for seven years, until her teacher Anne Sullivan helped her to learn how to communicate and connect with the world. Helen went on to become one of the most inspiring women of the Twentieth Century. She became the first deaf and blind person to receive a bachelor of arts degree, she wrote 12 books, and she was active in advocating on a number of issues, including women’s and labor rights. She once said, “Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therein to be content.”

To shine no matter what means being able to drop our baggage at any time and show up for the present moment, unencumbered, and ready to be transported to wherever it may take us.

WHAT GETS IN THE WAY OF SHINING?

I believe the primary obstacles to shining are Fear and Doubt. There are many shades of these. When I started to think about my own life, here are some of the things that can block me from this radiant shining:

We have a fear of standing out
It’s easier to stay small and invisible. You also become more of a visible target when you step fully into your power and presence, and people may project their stuff onto you.

We have resistance to receiving
We might feel uncomfortable in receiving the love that comes back to us when we take a chance and let our true nature shine. We may not realize that giving and receiving are two sides of the same coin – that we are actually giving something to others when we step fully into our deepest selves.

There are social and cultural reasons for backing off from our brilliance
For women and people in other marginalized groups, we have received a lifetime of messages about being “less than,” about staying small, and we have often internalized these messages. It takes real work to identify them and overcome them.

Our attachment to outcome
We might create a rigid set of expectations about what we want to see happen in ourselves, in others, in the world. While intentions are essential, when they get reified into attachment we create suffering for ourselves and others, and we block the flow of that shining true nature. When we stay true to an intention but are willing to be flexible about how we get there, we create possibilities of liberation. 

6 WAYS TO “SHINE NO MATTER WHAT”?

Here are 6 practices we can draw on as antidotes to Fear and Doubt.

1) Putting your trust in the truth of basic goodness.
The idea of “basic goodness” comes from the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, and it is a fundamental understanding that the world, just as it is, is actually perfect. Even in its imperfections. Fleet Maull is a dharma teacher who knows something about facing adversity and moving beyond it, having spent 14 years inside a maximum security federal prison. You can read more of Fleet’s story here. 

This is what Fleet has to say about basic goodness:

The obstacles of fear and doubt are the barrier to the natural expression of our innate qualities of caring and compassion. Accepting things as they are, starting with our experience of ourselves and our life right now, just as it is, is the first step in relaxing into our innate goodness and confidence. The more confidence we have in basic goodness, the less subject we are to doubt and fear and the less prone we are toward fear-based reactions of all kinds.

2) Practice.
A contemplative practice serves as an alchemical process that helps us to turn lead into gold. I’ve written about this lots in other places, so here I’ll just say it’s the ingredient that can make everything possible in your life, including “shining no matter what.”

3) Be deeply in love with what you do.
Each of us has something unique and magnificent that we are here on the planet to do. And a big part of letting our natural radiance shine through is to get in touch with whatever that gift is in us. Find something in which you totally lose yourself, whether that is cooking or gardening or writing or politics. And then do that thing, with your whole heart.

4) Focus on what you have, not what is missing.
This is the practice of appreciation and gratitude. I love what philanthropist Lynne Twist says about this: What we appreciate, appreciates.

5) Embrace the fullness of who you are, become intimate with the things that stand in the way of your own radiance.
Be courageous about getting to know your fears, the thoughts, emotions, and sensations that scare you. Don’t succumb to the temptation to run away from them to addictive substances or denial, or to be overwhelmed by them. Become relational with them. Ask why they are here and what you can learn from them.

6) Serve others and give others a chance to shine
Realize that the larger purpose of our life is not just for ourselves. As we break out of our small shell and live for the benefit of all beings, we begin to shine forth.  But remember that while this shining may come through you it’s not about you. That’s a subtle but ever-so important point.

Listen to each other’s stories. When we deeply listen, we can hear our own magnificence in others, and as we raise them up we raise ourselves up as well.

This article is based on a dharma talk I gave at Upaya Zen Center on October 16, 2013. You can listen to a podcast of the talk here. Thanks to Upaya for making these available!

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