Meet the Flipsters
Conversations on the Bridge |
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An Extended Conversation with
Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo
(The complete Flip interview, with only minor edits,
not found in the book)
Venerable Dhyani Ywahoo is the founder and spiritual
director of Sunray (www.sunray.org),
holder of the Ywahoo lineage, and Chief of the Green
Mountain Ani Yunwiwa. A “spiritual friend and
guide to many people around the planet,” she
has lectured at several universities and acted as
an advisor to such organizations as the Economic Opportunity
Council and the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy
(www.IMTD.org).
Ven. Dhyani’s training to carry the ancestral
traditions began in early childhood, under the direction
of her grandparents and elders. As holders of the
sacred knowledge of their people, they passed to her
the spiritual duty and blessings to carry the traditions
on which the work and teachings of Sunray are based.
The elders foresaw Ven. Dhyani’s duty to be
involved in the manifestation of world peace. She
recalled for us how her spiritual lineage shaped her
life: “I am of the Ywahoo lineage. In the old
time, there were people who were the priest craft
of the Cherokee tradition, maintaining the temples
and what we call the peace villages. Peace villages
are modeled on the teachings of the Luminous One,
or sometimes called the Pale One. He was born about
twenty-eight hundred years ago in the Thunder Mountain
of the Smokey Mountains, and was a quite remarkable
person with a commitment to come whenever people needed
him. He returned again in the 1500’s, born among
the Huron and known as the Peace Maker. Or you may
know him through the stories of Hiawatha. Growing
up, I had the direct awareness of the Luminous One
as a flame within our consciousness. His reminders
are that we are all relatives and that the ways in
which we speak and act, how we interface not only
with other people but also with other dimensions and
other beings, is important. This is what I now refer
to as ‘the bio-reciprocal relationship’
of ourselves with every other being – that the
way we view one another has an impact on the well-being
of each other.
“The Luminous One reminds us that we all have
a spiritual responsibility to generate love, or as
my grandmother said, we have a spiritual duty to be
happy. Happiness was not considered your personal
happiness; it was the harmony within the family clan
and the nation, and the harmony within our environment.
As such, we’ve traditionally held a very strong
belief in the power of mind to interface with the
environment, and to bring forth a greater crop of
abundance and also stabilization of the weather.”
We asked Ven. Dhyani to elaborate on the connection
between human consciousness and Nature. “It’s
very clear in the way we were taught that consciousness
does have an impact on the environment. We were taught
to gaze at the clouds and then to think of particular
animal shapes, and the clouds would take on the shapes
of the animals we thought of. So we had direct experience
of the interrelationship of our mind and emotions
with the environment.
“In 1969, our elders decided to bring our teachings
to the public because there had been many prophecies
about these times and because people have forgotten
what we call ‘original instructions.’
They have caused harm to themselves and the environment.
In the Cherokee world view, the environment and its
health is an indication of our relationship and the
health with the seed of truth, the light that is in
everyone. The environment responds to our emotions
as our emotions respond to the environment.
“I think that we’re most well known for
the Peace Keeper curriculum of pacifying, purifying,
and energizing the wisdom potential in every being.
It works with every level of people’s relationships,
bringing them to resonance with the potential for
awakened, skillful action that’s inherent in
every being and every situation. That program was
initiated in 1983 and has become incorporated into
many other organizations as a means of awakening the
process of reconciliation.
“People have forgotten the connection of mind
and matter. Many project their own sorrow, their own
conditioned view on a situation and perpetuate a small
vortex of confusion. How we are dreaming, how we are
looking at each other, how we are thinking and speaking
of a situation – all of this is energizing that
situation. Thus the people who are most respected
are those who are essentially the most quiet and still.
“Our consciousness definitely is part of a
dynamic dance with the elements which gives rise to
the situations in what we call our world. The question
is always asked, ‘Who’s dreaming us?’
We call it a great mystery. Literally, it is a mystery
because the moment you attempt to conceptualize or
define it, you’ve stepped back from it.”
We asked if the indigenous tradition perceives a
battle between good and evil, or a struggle between
ignorance and intelligence. “There certainly
is a call to be awakened,” says Ven. Dhyani.
“There’s a call to transformation. When
we maintain the view of battling, then that’s
perpetuating a dualistic view. We were encouraged
as we grew up to recognize instead a dynamic dance
of energy, and that what we contribute gives life
to particular energy vortices. So untransformed anger
and jealousy become the basis of an energy field that
devours. In many teaching stories in Native American
traditions, there are stories about the twins of positive
and negative qualities who are part of this dynamic
display.
“Everything is conscious; every atom –
every particle of the atom – has consciousness.
Without the attraction or repulsion of different charges,
the four-dimensional world would not express itself
as it does. So positive and negative energies create
the dance. What has become distorted is the negative
view of dominion over the elements, which are actually
aspects of our own mind, which we are responsible
to shape and guide in wholesome ways.
“So what’s wholesome? It means recognizing
a circle of relationship, that what we think or speak,
what we do, always returns. Thus we are very clearly
reminded of the importance of clarity in our speech
and in our emotions. We don’t run from the emotions
of fear, anger, shame, and blame, but recognize them
as energies which can ultimately reveal inherent luminosity.”
We noted similarities in the teachings of the Ven.
Dhyani and those of His Holiness the Dali Lama. “Of
course, the Dali Lama is a great example of transformative
consciousness and the ways in which we can elicit
wisdom from one another,” she agreed. “The
prophecies of many Native American nations speak of
our relatives returning from the East. My own family
prophesied that people in red cloaks would come again,
and together our prayers and activities would benefit
the earth in its time of travail.
“When I was a young child, I discovered a small
statue of the goddess – or Bodhisattva –
Kwan Yin, in the home of one of my great aunts. I
said, ‘That’s me!’ The statue was
on a lower shelf, and I placed it on a higher shelf.
My relatives smiled and asked me, ‘What did
you mean?’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s
me. That’s what I came here for!’ That
event has remained in the background of my life, although
I didn’t begin to study Buddhism until the seventies
when His Holiness the Dali Lama began visiting the
United States.
“I remember, during the Sixties, encountering
the Heart Sutra and recognizing that the words were
the essence of what my grandparents displayed and
taught. And then in the later years I had the good
fortune to meet with many extraordinary Buddhist teachers,
and this deepened my childhood commitment to expressing
skillful action in a compassionate way.”
How does Ven. Dhyani view the planetary flip taking
place? “The shift is occurring as people awaken
to an understanding of the mind as energy and energy
potentials. They are also beginning to see that what
is occurring on one side of the planet has an impact
on the other side. And how we treat one another, and
even how we view the world, are projections that can
create negative, reactive states.
“For instance, the polluted water that flooded
New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina is an example
of the overflowing of unconscious ignorance. Ignorance
of our relationship to the environment and to each
other. And ignorance of the cycle of reciprocity with
the earth. Holding back the river and thus depleting
the deltas and further weakening the shoreline is
another example of the ignorant expression of our
relationship to water. This calls us to see very clearly
that we cannot impose our priorities, that we must
work with the elements.
“More and more people are awakening to the
mindfulness of energizing communities, nations, and
religious groups. They are coming to a place of reconciliation
and resonance with the ultimate truth that wisdom
lies within every being and every situation. Ignorance
and the small vortices of energy that are generated
from ignorant actions seek to perpetuate themselves.
But appreciation is a stabilizer in the energy flow.
We can conceptualize a world of harmony and beauty.
Visualize families, nations, the land in cooperative
harmony and each one of us doing what needs doing.
Conceptualize, visualize, energize, do what needs
doing. Minds full of love and appreciation can counter
ignorance and begin to heal the Earth.”
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The Flip, by Jared Rosen and David Rippe, illuminates
a clear path to a vibrant enlightened world where
millions of people already live and thrive. It describes
in vivid detail and real examples evidence of an upside
down world in decay and a Right Side Up world of authentic
beings bright with possibility.
The Flip is an owner’s manual for the twenty-first
century full of insights, conversations with recognized
experts, thought leaders, and visionaries, and actionable
exercises and tips you can use to begin your own personal
flip.
To read more about The Flip
and additional interviews from other luminaries, experts
and bestselling authors, please visit www.theflip.net
The Flip is available at your
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& Noble, Joseph-Beth,
and Borders.
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