Contemplation # 10

Please feel free to listen to my music while you read. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

To revolve, to evolve with self-respect, cause we got to keep ourselves in check, or else it’s...self-destruction.

- Chuck D, Self Destruction

One way to identify suffering, whether as an individual, community, or society, is by paying attention to cycles of behavior and thinking which never seems to amount to an improvement in our lives. Just when we think we've created the perfect situation by obtaining the perfect car, relationship, job, home, etc., we soon realize how imperfect the situation is: the car gets a blemish that can't be removed, we have the first big argument with our partners, our job becomes stale and full of rote activity, and our homes need repair, new furnishings and cleaning. Indeed, when we are always on the search for something new it is like a revolving door that never grants us entry into the palace of permanent happiness. This hunt for satisfaction also extends itself into psychological and spiritual realms. Very often we feel that if we obtain the right insights, ideas, intellectual pursuits, college degrees, or transcendent experiences through drugs, spiritual trinkets and texts, retreats and even meditation practices, then that will bring the happiness that we are searching for into our lives. Unfortunately, even when we run after these symbols of education and enlightenment we are still disappointed. When our search extends so far beyond oneself that we forget that WE are our most inherent resource, we lose our connection with the power that produces growth without need for supplement or appropriation. 

If we want to evolve or "develop and grow to another level" as Ms. Melodie says earlier in the song Self Destruction, we must first start with self respect, but what is self respect? We could debate the idea of "a self" all day long and it is not my intention to do that here. However, to simplify things I'll relatively define the self as that which we seem to carry with us throughout the duration of our lives. If we search our bodies and minds we will find no "self" (trust me, I've looked), but our physical and mental experience is often as real as it gets. Treating our bodies and minds with respect means appreciating and regarding them as precious gifts we did little to obtain. We have no greater friends than this body that supports us and mind that guides us, but how are we displaying this admiration for our most intimate companions? Are we involved in self creation or self destruction? Do we spend time with these mates focusing our awareness on them in order to deeply know them, feel them, bond with them, and even feel ourselves AS them, or do we place our awareness on the external world, hoping that somewhere out there is something better than this? How can we display a greater respect for ourselves? What is the impact of self respect on family, community, society and our world? What do I have that I ignore and why? What is the connection between self respect and my own self destructive tendencies?

Let's contemplate this: Sit in an upright and comfortable position (on a cushion or chair) with your hands in the meditation posture (place the back of your left hand on the palm of your right hand and let your thumbs touch lightly). Let your eyes rest, half closed and focused on nothing in particular. Let everything in your field of vision just be, without labelling it or judging it. Just let your eyes relax. Sit for five minutes and focus all of your attention on breathing. Feel the complete in and out breath and when your mind wanders, bring your attention back to your breath.

After five minutes, allow a word, a sentence, or the entire phrase to arise in your mind and when the word, sentence, or phrase fades, say it gently again. Allow whatever arises to arise without judgement and when something feels real, when there's some spark of insight, rest in your mind and place your attention on it. When your mind starts to wander, bring your attention back to what arose for you. Practice contemplation for ten minutes and then return to focusing on your breath for five more minutes. Focus only on the most subtle of experience. Afterwards, carry whatever arose for you in contemplation practice into your everyday life.

Check this previous post for an explanation of contemplation practice. http://www.hiphopalive.org/mind-spray/2016/12/7/4p2lnb8omwoc5dc5uznhcxii002b89

If there is a verse you think should be contemplated or think I should discuss, let me know in the comment section below. 

Hiphop Alive

Justin F. Miles is the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment.  

Contemplation # 9

Please feel free to listen to my music while you read. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

“To know everything is to know nothing.

Nothing is zero, so zero's my hero.”

- D'Ranged and Damaged, Yaggfu Front

In 1999, while riding in a car with my friends Ryan and Jeremy, listening to Ras Kass's second album Rassassination, someone raised the question: If you could know the future, would you want to know? Ryan and Jeremy wisely answered no; I answered yes. I think I wanted to know so that hopefully, I could live my life differently or at the very least, enjoy it to the fullest. But, did I need to how my life would unfold in order to genuinely appreciate life more? Why did I really want to know? I think I really wanted to know because I was afraid (and to a certain extent still am) to live without knowing the direction my life would take. I realized I would love to defer the responsibility of the direction of my life to someone or something else. I don't want to live in the unknown and I don't want to be caught off guard by the unexpected, yet inevitable forces of aging, sickness, and death.

D'Ranged's verse raises the question: What if I could know everything? What if I were omniscient? If one could know everything, perhaps one would gain power over ones destiny or even better, over the destiny of others. We could control and determine history. We could avoid pain and maximize pleasure. We could waste time living it up like it's Friday night and in the 4th quarter of our lives try to turn it all around. But the truth is, even with knowledge of everything, that knowledge would expand, change and be replaced with new knowledge. Looking deeply into the structure of an atom initially reveals protons, neutrons and electrons, but with increased magnification reveals gluons, bosons, tachyons and quarks. If we could squint with God's eyes, maybe we could see the proposed quantum existence of superstrings and singularities. At a certain point reality starts to fall apart and we begin to see that what we considered to be real is in fact just a collection of momentary data which, under increased scrutiny, falls apart. Eventually we may arrive at something or maybe nothing at all. The same may be true of our thoughts and feelings. The more we look the more we may find an intangibility that defies our ability to label it. 

But if everything is nothing, then what is that nothing and does that mean that we are nothing? D'Ranged and Damaged ends his verse with the line "so zero's my hero". Zero becomes not a point of despair, but a savior and harbinger of hope. There is an implicit statement of optimism; the possibility that knowing nothing could reveal freedom. If one could trust in that nothingness, in the zero, one could be liberated from the need to rely strictly on knowing as the sole source of information regarding reality. Maybe the lyrics to the Schoolhouse Rock song by Bob Dorough, My Hero Zero, could provide us with some insight into the importance of zero: 

What's so wonderful about a zero?
It's nothing, isn't it?

Sure, it represents nothing alone

But place a zero after 1
And you've got yourself a 10
See how important that is?
When you run out of digits
You can start all over again
See how convenient that is?

That's why with only ten digits including zero
You can count as high as you could ever go...
Forever, towards infinity
No one ever gets there, but you could try

With 10 billion zeros
From the cavemen till the heroes
Who invented you
They counted on their fingers and toes
And maybe some sticks and stones, or rocks and bones
And their neighbors' toes
You're here
And nobody really knows
How wonderful you are
Why we could never reach the star
Without you, Zero, my hero
Zero, how wonderful you are

Place one zero after any number
And you've multiplied that number by 10
See how easy that is
Place two zeros after any number
And you've multiplied that number by 100
See how simple that is
Place three zeros after any number
And you've multiplied that number by 1,000

Et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad astra, forever and ever
With zero, my hero, how wonderful you are.

From this perspective, the nothingness of zero doesn't remove us from knowing but instead allows us to procreate, adding to what was previously experienced as a singular known. 

Let's contemplate this: Sit in an upright and comfortable position (on a cushion or chair) with your hands in the meditation posture (place the back of your left hand on the palm of your right hand and let your thumbs touch lightly). Let your eyes rest, half closed and focused on nothing in particular. Let everything in your field of vision just be, without labelling it or judging it. Just let your eyes relax. Sit for five minutes and focus all of your attention on breathing. Feel the complete in and out breath and when your mind wanders, bring your attention back to your breath.

After five minutes, allow a word, a sentence or the entire phrase to arise in your mind and when the word, sentence, or phrase fades, say it gently again. Allow whatever arises to arise without judgement and when something feels real, when there's some spark of insight, rest in your mind and place your attention on it. When your mind starts to wander, bring your attention back to what arose for you. Practice contemplation for ten minutes and then return to focusing on your breath for five more minutes. Focus only on the most subtle of experience. Afterwards, carry whatever arose for you in contemplation practice into your everyday life.

Check this previous post for an explanation of contemplation practice. http://www.hiphopalive.org/mind-spray/2016/12/7/4p2lnb8omwoc5dc5uznhcxii002b89

If there is a verse you think should be contemplated or think I should discuss, let me know in the comment section below. 

Hiphop Alive

Justin F. Miles is the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment. 

Contemplation # 8

Please feel free to listen to my music while you read. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

We are always trying to remember what we choose to forget.

- Saul Williams

When I'm not making beats or teaching a class on Buddhism, I am a full time psychotherapist. With my clients I've noticed a phenomena regardless of race, class, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status that shows up in the experience of everyone I see. When the mind encounters thoughts or feelings that are threatening to the individuals sense of self, it attempts to push the idea, memory, association, etc. out of its awareness. The mind attempts to disown the phenomena. Sometimes the disowning is about difficult events or emotions such as trauma, helplessness, guilt or worry, but often times the events are based on positive experiences such as a recent success or a new relationship. Regardless of the quality of the phenomena, it gets pushed into an area of the psyche sometimes referred to as the shadow. It's a zone where anything threatening to the self sense gets placed. I like to think of it as the hallway closet of the mind where we toss the things we can't find any other place for. Eventually, either through intentional spring cleaning or through reaching maximum capacity and exploding, this storehouse of rejected experiences will eventually be revisited. But why do we do this and is this a conscious or unconscious event?

The truth is that we are choosing to forget, choosing to not hold thoughts, feelings and events positive and negative that we find difficult to reconcile within our awareness. We do this because seeing situations as they are is threatening to us. Instead of experiencing the truth of our lives, we defer to illusions and the accompanying behaviors of addiction, mindlessness and pretending as if we are not in as much pain as we're truly in. If we faced this pain it may feel as if we will die or succumb to the intensity of how we feel; however, the real threat of our pain is what we do to avoid it, not the pain itself. The pain of the phenomena rarely matches the pain of the avoidance. The real threat of our truth is the responsibility our truth asks us to acknowledge. Whether pain or pleasure, the truth of things calls to us to be faced and embraced or we will be haunted until we do. By remembering or recalling our place as participants in the natural human experience of feeling and being as we are, in all of of our torment and triumphs, we can give ourselves permission to hold whatever may arise in our minds as worthy of consideration and contemplation.

What are you always choosing to forget? Why? What would happen if you allowed it to hold space in your awareness? Are the pain and consequences of avoiding things you would like to forget, greater than the pain of the things you're avoiding? How do you know?

Let's contemplate this: Sit in an upright and comfortable position (on a cushion or chair) with your hands in the meditation posture (place the back of your left hand on the palm of your right hand and let your thumbs touch lightly). Let your eyes rest, half closed and focused on nothing in particular. Let everything in your field of vision just be, without labelling or judging it. Just let your eyes relax. Sit for five minutes and focus all of your attention on breathing. Feel the complete in and out breath and when your mind wanders, bring your attention back to your breath.

After five minutes, allow a word, a sentence or the entire phrase to arise in your mind and when the word, sentence or phrase fades, say it gently again. Allow whatever arises to arise without judgement and when something feels real, when there's some spark of insight, rest in your mind and place your attention on it. When your mind starts to wander, bring your attention back to what arose for you. Practice contemplation for ten minutes and then return to focusing on your breath for five more minutes. Focus only on the most subtle of experience. Afterwards, carry whatever arose for you in contemplation practice into your everyday life.

Check this previous post for an explanation of contemplation practice. http://www.hiphopalive.org/mind-spray/2016/12/7/4p2lnb8omwoc5dc5uznhcxii002b89

If there is a verse you think should be contemplated or think I should discuss, let me know in the comment section below. 

Hiphop Alive

Justin F. Miles is the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment.  

Contemplation # 7

Please feel free to listen to my music while you read. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

WISDOM IS BETTER THAN RUBIES, SILVER, OR GOLD. IT'S HIGHER IN VALUE PLUS MORE DURABLE

- LMNO

This line is a reworking of a verse from the Christian Book of Wisdom, The Bible; Proverbs 8:10-11 to be exact. The verse reads:  "Take my instruction and not silver, And knowledge rather than choicest gold." "For wisdom is better than jewels; And all desirable things cannot compare with her."

Most of us are probably familiar with the phrase, "knowledge is power". When I was a young man, my father used to tell me I should get an education because once you get it, no one can take it away from you. It's yours. Getting a degree allowed me to better determine my financial future, where and how I wanted to live. It's provided me the ability to find employment with ease and raise a family. It also widened my perspective of the world by deepening my understanding of race, class, politics, social welfare, philosophy, and religion. Sometimes I say to myself, "I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't gone to college", because most of my friends and social resources are an extension of higher education; theirs or mine. School helped me control the destiny and direction of my everyday life; to a large extent, knowledge gives us power and rulership over our relative existence.

But there was a problem. Even though I did well at regurgitating the information my professors threw at me, passed all the tests, and received a couple degrees, it wasn't enough. Soon I was told the things I learned were being replaced with new insights in the field of psychology. I got jobs I was happy with and who were happy with me, but was told I needed more education, training, certifications, and licenses if I wanted to keep it. This tendency wasn't limited to employment either. When I was a kid we learned there were 9 planets. In my lifetime Pluto was kicked to the curb and is now considered a dwarf planet, so now there are 8 planets. Oddly enough, Pluto was discovered in 1930 which means in my grandfather's lifetime there were 8 planets, and when Pluto was added as a 9th, his understanding of cosmology changed like mine did. This is because knowledge changes and is only as powerful as our limitations to see beyond it. Once we gain the ability to explore phenomena in a more exacting way, our knowledge of it changes. This means knowledge will always be changing and will continue to build on itself ad infinitum. Accepting that experience as an indelible fact is wisdom.

What is the value of wisdom? Both the Bible and LMNO say it's more valuable than precious minerals and jewels, but how? Value is often related to usefulness. What's the usefulness of jewels or money? Well in some sense money has similar characteristics to knowledge. I can use it intelligently to shape my world, to help others and if invested correctly, can watch it build on itself and multiply. The value of wisdom is different. It's ultimate usefulness is its capacity to grant access to absolute truth and therefore rulership over the trappings of the world of relative truth. Desiring wisdom more than rubies, silver, and gold means you genuinely want to see through the illusion that objects of temporary value, which provide temporary moments of joy (rubies, etc.), will ever result in a lasting happiness. In stillness and focused awareness, wisdom informs us there is a reality of peace, contentment, love, and compassion which underlies our everyday experience. It is the way out of the suffering that comes from living disharmoniously with nature. The etymology of the word knowledge is derived from the word gnosis (where we get words like hypnosis, gnostic, acknowledge, agnostic, cognitive and diagnosis) which is in turn derived from the Sanskrit word jnana which means "knowledge inseparable from the direct experience of reality itself". Why do we suffer? Because we do not live in accordance with reality, or how things genuinely are. In a sense because of our attachments to the world of form (the world of knowledge) we turn our awareness away from the search for inherent wisdom. 

Why did LMNO say that wisdom is more durable that jewels? Wisdom is durable because it is not subject to the laws of the conditioned world. Wisdom is neither created nor destroyed, neither comes nor goes, is neither obtained or lost, never given or received, is self-existing, and lasts forever. It knows no race and has no friends or enemies. The best part about wisdom is that it is inherent. You're born with it. It's the unconditioned experience of resting in your own indwelling awareness, and in quietude, wisdom is discovered as what lies beneath the usual torrent of thoughts and feelings. You carry it around with you wherever you go and if you're really paying attention, you can see it in others as well. It's our collective birthright. Sages, seers, prophets, mystics, clerics and avatars the world over have all said the same thing; cultivating a relationship with wisdom is the way to see through the confusion that obscures genuine happiness, freedom, growth, and power.

Let's contemplate LMNO's verse: Sit in an upright and comfortable position (on a cushion or chair) with your hands in the meditation posture (place the back of your left hand on the palm of your right hand and let your thumbs touch lightly). Let your eyes rest, half closed and focused on nothing in particular. Let everything in your field of vision just be, without labelling or judging it. Just let your eyes relax. Sit for five minutes and focus all of your attention on breathing. Feel the complete in and out breath and when your mind wanders, bring your attention back to your breath.

After five minutes, allow a word, a sentence, or the entire phrase to arise in your mind and when the word, sentence, or phrase fades, say it gently again. Allow whatever arises to arise without judgement and when something feels real, when there's some spark of insight, rest in your mind and place your attention on it. When your mind starts to wander, bring your attention back to what arose for you. Practice contemplation for ten minutes and then return to focusing on your breath for five more minutes. Focus only on the most subtle of experience. Afterwards, carry whatever arose for you in contemplation practice into your everyday life.

Check this previous post for an explanation of contemplation practice. http://www.hiphopalive.org/mind-spray/2016/12/7/4p2lnb8omwoc5dc5uznhcxii002b89

If there is a verse you think should be contemplated or think I should discuss, let me know in the comment section below. 

Hiphop Alive

Justin F. Miles is the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment. 

Contemplation # 6

Please feel free to listen to my music while you read. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

They pray four times per day, they pray five. Who ways is strange when its time to survive?

–MF DOOM

The spiritual practice that one chooses is often a matter of survival. Sometimes its an attempt to answer the question, "what can I do to ease/stop my suffering"? The efficacy of ones practice is never found in the viewer and always in the practitioner themselves. My teacher once told me, "you are your own bullshit meter", meaning I am the only one that could truly determine if my claims of fruition were true. Was my meditation and contemplation practice having the desired effect or was I making it all up?

In today's political and social climate, religious and spiritual practice are more necessary than ever. We can either dive into our paths, allowing ourselves to evaluate and experience the fruit of our practice in our relationships, workplaces, with loved ones and strangers or we can spend time doing what's been described as "counting cows". Being a successful cowherd is not based on being the smartest or spending time evaluating how others raise their herd. Success comes from diligent practice without all the hangups.

So DOOM makes a good point: who cares, who prays how many times per day or who comes off as strange when the real benefit of prayer, meditation and contemplation is only found in the direct experience of our natures and how we allow that realization to show up in our everyday lives. When we find ourselves causing us and others harm, who cares about what anyone else is doing. At that point i'm my own worst enemy and my only true savior.

Let's contemplate DOOM's line: Sit in an upright and comfortable position (on a cushion or chair) with your hands in the meditation posture (place the back of your left hand on the palm of your right hand and let your thumbs touch lightly). Let your eyes rest, half closed and focused on nothing in particular. Let everything in your field of vision just be, without labelling it or judging it. Just let your eyes relax. Sit for five minutes and focus all of your attention on breathing. Feel the complete in and out breath and when your mind wanders, bring your attention back to your breath.

After five minutes, allow a word, a sentence or the entire phrase to arise in your mind and when the word, sentence or phrase fades, say it gently again. Allow whatever arises to arise without judgement and when something feels real, when there's some spark of insight rest in your mind and place your attention on it. When your mind starts to wander, bring your attention back to what arose for you. Practice contemplation for ten minutes and then return to focusing on your breath for five more minutes. Focus only on the most subtle of experience. Afterwards, carry whatever arose for you in contemplation practice into your everyday life.

Check this previous post for an explanation of contemplation practice. http://www.hiphopalive.org/mind-spray/2016/12/7/4p2lnb8omwoc5dc5uznhcxii002b89

If there is a verse you think should be contemplated or think I should discuss, let me know in the comment section below. 

Hiphop Alive

Justin F. Miles is the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment.  

Contemplation # 5

Please feel free to listen to my music while you read. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

Your Insanity Is My Clarity, Not to Mention Convention Is A Great War Weapon.

- El-P

To be insane is to have a disingenuous relationship with reality (whether intentional or not) and with that definition all of us to some degree are insane. Knowing this, it may be possible to see our confusion as an area of commonality and therefore connection and communication. 

Taking the time to look into ourselves and discover our day to day craziness is a good practice and the potential harbinger of good news. It means that we are seeing the reality of our individual situations; that our minds are always moving and often feels solely in control over the decision as to when it will decide to settle down and let us have some peace. Despite the racing thoughts that we experience, the collecting and focusing of our awareness is the dawn of clarity or the beginning of seeing things as they truly are.

Witnessing our own insanity and its dance partner, the coy and seemingly elusive clarity, also aids us in understanding what's going on with others. If confusion is happening for me its probably happening to them. If the desire to be happy is happening for me its probably happening for them. We can use clarity to see into others insanity, and in fact deeply allowing ourselves to experience another's insanity is a good definition for compassion. As I was taught, the etymology of the word compassion translates as "to suffer with" or to go through the difficult experiences with another. I can either choose to see your suffering or to see you AS your suffering. I can choose to delight in your suffering or I can choose to feel into your suffering. Of course another choice is to completely ignore the whole thing and pretend as if as long as I don't pay attention to what's going on with anyone that everything will be alright.

Conventional thinking (or common place, status quo thinking) may show us that others pain should be ignored in favor of our own comfort or fear (what do I stand to gain by caring about how you feel?). But who wins and who loses when that type of thinking becomes the norm? Convention is indeed a great war weapon. It is useful when you want to control large groups of people, especially when the result is power for the few and disempowerment for the many. Convention convinces us of our own illusory superiority and reinforces preexisting arrogance. As long as we can pretend to know what is most real, with the support of those around us and without much encouragement to look beyond the surface of our experience, we can justify righteousness, avoid the responsibility of determining fact from fiction on our own and ignore the jarring truths that exist when we let go of group think in favor of truth think.

Let us contemplate this:  

Sit in an upright and comfortable position (on a cushion or chair) with your hands in the meditation posture (place the back of your left hand on the palm of your right hand and let your thumbs touch lightly). Let your eyes rest, half closed and focused on nothing in particular. Let everything in your field of vision just be, without labelling it or judging it. Just let your eyes relax. Sit for five minutes and focus all of your attention on breathing. Feel the complete in and out breath and when your mind wanders, bring your attention back to your breath.

After five minutes, allow a word, a sentence or the entire phrase to arise in your mind and when the word, sentence or phrase fades, say it gently again. Allow whatever arises to arise without judgement and when something feels real, when there's some spark of insight rest in your mind and place your attention on it. When your mind starts to wander, bring your attention back to what arose for you. Practice contemplation for ten minutes and then return to focusing on your breath for five more minutes. Focus only on the most subtle of experience. Afterwards, carry whatever arose for you in contemplation practice into your everyday life.

Check this previous post for an explanation of contemplation practice. http://www.hiphopalive.org/mind-spray/2016/12/7/4p2lnb8omwoc5dc5uznhcxii002b89

If there is a verse you think should be contemplated or think I should discuss, let me know in the comment section below. 

 Hiphop Alive

Justin F. Miles is the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment.       

 

Contemplation # 4

Please feel free to listen to my music while you read. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

It’s a paradox we call reality, so keeping it real will make you a casualty of abnormal normality.

-Talib Kweli

Sometimes the events of the world are so intensely painful that it's almost hard to believe this is the world we live in. Terrorism, political circuses, war, racism, poverty, environmental degradation, as well as mental health and substance abuse issues, all plague our world, causing anxiety about our individual and collective futures.

Acknowledging this as our shared reality is difficult. It is even more difficult to not allow this reality to cause us to respond in ways that, although initially make us feel as if we are coping with our suffering, end up causing us more suffering in the end. The term "keeping it real" sometimes means being genuine to oneself and others. From another perspective, keeping it real means living your pain, no matter how real it is or the consequences involved. So one can keep it real by acting aggressively, overspending, speaking in ways that cause harm, or in general not giving a damn. 

It's the latter form of keeping it real that causes our lives the most damage, and in a sense may not be as real as it seems. One only need to remember the now infamous skit from The Chapelle Show where Dave Chapelle playing Darius James is leaving the club with his date Tanisha Davis, and another man says, "Hey Tanisha, good to see you!" Instead of leaving and going home for a night of fun, Darius turns around and gets in an altercation with a 10th degree Blackbelt who picks fights just for the hell of it. Because his ego was threatened, Darius decided to stay at the club, fight, and ended up getting beat up.

In a world where the ego is valued more than the inherent human qualities of clarity, patience, kindness, charity, and forgiveness, keeping it real is indeed a paradox; the truth is we are more than our egos and at the same time experience our egos as the truth of who we are. Although seemingly solid because of years of reinforcement of "ME" as the most important thing on the planet, upon examination our ideas about our "self" begin to fall apart revealing the contradiction that the previously held substantiality of "ME" is in fact full of no substance at all. 

Living according to this abnormal normality, this naturalizing of the unnatural relationship with one's ego as the center of the universe, literally can cause casualties and in fact is the underlying cause of so many of the world's ills. If we saw the truth of interdependence, the faults of chasing illusory happiness through desire and aggression, the harm in ignoring how ourselves and others exist, would the world experience so much difficulty? There is pain we cannot prevent: the death of a loved one, being let go from our jobs, a partner leaving us for someone else, or a life threatening illness that blindsides us. But suffering is a different kind of pain; a self imposed pain that comes from not being able to discern between real and fake, or to see what should be accepted or rejected. 

The opportune word is seeing. We see by looking, not with our eye organs but with our internal eyes. By spending time examining what we consider to be real, we may be introduced to a reality that dissolves our attachment to acting out of our initial ego centered behavior, illuminating more useful ways of dealing with the challenges of our everyday lives. 

Let us contemplate this: What is real and how do I know? How have I normalized abnormal thoughts, speech and actions? How do I keep it real and is that the most real that I could keep it? Do I cause myself suffering by acting out of habitual behaviors that consistently produce the same negative consequences? How can I keep it really real?

Sit in an upright and comfortable position (on a cushion or chair) with your hands in the meditation posture (place the back of your left hand on the palm of your right hand and let your thumbs touch lightly). Let your eyes rest, half closed and focused on nothing in particular. Let everything in your field of vision just be, without labelling it or judging it. Just let your eyes relax. Sit for five minutes and focus all of your attention on breathing. Feel the complete in and out breath and when your mind wanders, bring your attention back to your breath. After five minutes, allow the question to arise in your mind without seeking the answer and when the question fades, say it gently again. Allow whatever arises to arise and when something feels real, that may be quiet or loud, rest in your mind and place your attention on it. When your mind starts to wander, bring your attention back to what arose for you. Practice contemplation for ten minutes and then return to focusing on your breath for five more minutes. Focus only on the most subtle of experience. Afterwards, carry whatever arose for you in contemplation practice into your everyday life.

Check this previous post for an explanation of contemplation practice. http://www.hiphopalive.org/mind-spray/2016/12/7/4p2lnb8omwoc5dc5uznhcxii002b89

If there is a verse you think should be contemplated or think I should discuss, let me know in the comment section below. 

 Hiphop Alive

Justin F. Miles is the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment.     

Contemplation # 3

Please feel free to listen to my music while you read. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

Ignorance is a poison and knowledge will nourish

-KRS-ONE/BDP, Words From Our Sponsor

What feeds you? What nutrients, minerals and vitamins are essential for your life to flourish?

The science is clear: fruits, vegetables, ancient grains, water are what we NEED. Other things we put into our system are wants. The body makes enough saturated fats to sustain us however the body doesn't make essential fatty acids or EFAS, mono and poly unsaturated fatty acids or MUFAS and PUFAS and we need to get those from outside sources. The body needs strength training as well as aerobic, anaerobic and movement that cultivates a relationship with our subtle energies i.e. chi, prana or elan vital. And don't forget that sleep regulates most of our bodies functions. Our minds need to reconcile with our shadows or the areas of our awareness that we choose to not look at through various forms of therapy and stability, clarity, strength and insight through practices such as meditation, contemplation and prayer. And our spirit doesn't NEED yet we need to acknowledge it as the ground and fruition of all of our experience. We need to socialize and recognize our connection to others as well as explore and manifest our cultural values in our interactions with each other. 

These are needs and have existed as such since time immemorial. The worlds spiritual and scientific wisdom traditions have said so for millennia. So why do we turn away from these inherent sources of nourishment and the shared view that says that we should do so. Because....ignorance.

What is ignorance? Is it stupidity or knowing but not doing, or is it less intentional than that? My experience has shown me that ignorance is simply not paying attention. Not looking. Not trying to see anything other than our everyday experience of the world as what is most real. 

KRS-ONE says that ignorance is a poison. How is ignorance a poison? Poison is a contaminate that causes ignorance to a system. How does ignorance cause illness? Because ignorance involves not paying attention, it causes sickness because it facilitates the continuance of already existing suffering as well as produces consequences that harm ourselves and others. We are already suffering. How are we suffering? Because we avoid the fundamental truths of our lives and our existence as human beings. We want to ignore the eventuality of our deaths. We want to ignore the beauty, benefit and frankly luck of being born a human being and not a dung beetle. We want to ignore how our behavior, speech and thoughts contribute to consequences that reduce the quality of our lives and we want to ignore how our attachment to transient forms of happiness cause us to compulsively seek out more illusory happiness through the collection and consumption of material, intellectualism and transcendent experiences.

The poison of ignorance causes us to avoid not only our potential to cause ourselves harm, but how we are involved in causing others harm by not knowing the truth that we are all suffering and that we are all fundamentally good.

KRS-ONE then says that knowledge will nourish. How does knowledge nourish? Knowledge feeds our bodies, minds and spirits by informing us of what we truly need to pay attention to and what we need to avoid. Knowledge is temporary, it changes and it is not ultimate power no matter what anyone says. Wisdom is unchanging power. However, knowledge, experiential knowledge lets us know what it is that sustains us through change, crisis and trauma. The experiential knowledge of the body, mind and spirit informs us that they need attention in particular ways and in ways that are common to all human beings. 

Knowledge involves learning through reading, studying, listening, contemplating and meditating in order to directly KNOW who and what I physically, psychologically and spiritually am. Knowledge will nourish us by feeding us information that will assist us on our paths. Knowledge (especially knowledge that arises from deep within us) will feed us without making us dependent on outside sources, even though our external worlds are excellent opportunities to take in information about tried and true ancient remedies as well as the latest evidence based theories and practices about to cope with and cure common human ailments. 

The cause of our suffering is not, not having access to the information that will aid us, it is not spending time looking for and accepting knowledge that has existed for time immemorial. 

Contemplate this: How is ignorance poisoning your physical, mental and spiritual life? How has experiential avoidance caused you problems? What feeds you deeply? When have you felt the most healthy and when have you felt the most disconnected from healthiness?

Check out this posting for more on contemplation and contemplation instructions: http://www.hiphopalive.org/mindspray/2016/12/7/4p2lnb8omwoc5dc5uznhcxii002b89

Let me know if there are any verses that you think should be discussed here or contemplated. 

Be well,

 Hiphop Alive

Justin F. Miles is the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment.      

Contemplation # 2

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It's your brain against my mind.

- Q-Tip, Buggin' Out, Low End Theory, 1991

I remember the first time I heard Buggin' Out. In all fairness I wasn't the first one around my way to have the now iconic Low End Theory cassette with the sexy woman in red, black and green stripes. That award goes to my man Christopher Leon Brown. 

Aside from being a fun, dope track with strong lyrics from both Tip and Phife, it also contained a moment of ontological depth. 

At the end of Tip's second verse he says:

"I go out with the strongest and I separate the evils. It's your brain against my mind."

At first glance the verse could be seen as a shout to those in Tip's circle with strong wills and a dis to those with weak constitutions; the evils. It's the second part of the verse that got me. "It's your brain against my mind". 

I was only 15 at the time but I remember thinking, "what's the difference between the brain and the mind"? Aren't they the same thing? But they couldn't be. Not only did my then idol Mr. Jonathan Davis (now Kamaal Ibn Fareed) say it wasn't, but I couldn't ignore that I related differently to the ideas of my "brain" and my "mind". I knew what my brain was (no matter how often I proved to my parents that I wasn't using it), but if there is a brain (that soft ball of neural connections in my skull) and something separate called a mind (whatever the hell that is), then what is the mind and where is it? And why did Q-Tip seem to favor the brain (YOUR brain vs. MY mind) over the mind?

In 1991 my idea of the mind was as the events that went on in my head. It was my sense of an "I" or a "self", my identity, my story, what I liked, disliked or didn't give a damn about. MY mind that existed as an independent entity that would proclaim its difference from YOUR mind at the drop of a hat.

91' was the year I learned how to meditate. As a part of a Judo class I took 4 days a week at the local rec center, we sat zazen, the style of meditation practiced by Zen Buddhists. The instruction was to kneel and sit with our butts on our heels (called seiza position), place the back of my left hand on top of my right hand and let my thumbs touch lightly (sometimes called the concentration or meditation mudra, or hand position), to keep our eyes half open and focus our attention solely on silence; to try to experience on the most subtle experience and don't move from it. Those moments were the first time that I encountered anything resembling something other than my normal mind. We would only sit for 5 minutes but it was enough to make me curious about what would happen if I practiced more. I would go home and practice meditation for longer periods in my room and allow everything to get very quiet until everything started to disappear. I remember feeling frightened because there was nothing there; it was like getting lost on purpose and then being expected to enjoy it, so I would let it go. I would focus my attention, let everything fade away, get scared and just drop the technique. But if there were anything that I could call the mind it was that; simply seeing that although there seems to be something called a mind i.e. the contents-memories, associations, ideas, concepts etc. all things that seem to change- there was nothing there when I looked besides looking and nothing else. That looking didn't shift even thought the contents did.  

So when Tip said "it's your brain against my mind" he may have been saying "you're using the limited, shifting experience as your weapon" while "i'm using the unlimited static experience as mine". That mind is powerful, where the brain (although necessary and powerful in it's own right) at the most is a device for channeling and directing that power. As he says on the song "1, 2 Shit" found on the B-Side to the excellent 1994 12" single "Oh My God", "My lyrics is the bullet and the mic is the tool". The truth is that one is not useful without the other. A gun is a powerful machine but the energy of destruction (or creation depending on your stance) comes from the ammo. Contemplation practice involves using the physical brain (neural connections and various lobes with their individual functions and interdependent abilities) and its contents (concepts, perceptions etc.), to access the non-conceptual (awareness, wisdom, clarity). When we use the brain to experience the mind, what newfound insights and abilities do we discover? 

Contemplate it for yourself. What is the difference or similarity between the brain and the mind? Don't think about it. Sit in an upright and comfortable position (on a cushion or chair) with your hands in the meditation mudra that I spoke about earlier. Allow the question to arise in your mind without seeking the answer and when the question fades, say it gently again. Allow whatever to arise to arise and when something that feels real, that may be quiet or loud to rest in your mind and place your attention on it. When your mind starts to wander, bring your attention back to what arose for you. Practice contemplation for 10 minutes and then allow yourself to sit in the silence I spoke of earlier for 5 minutes. Focus only on the most subtle of experience. After 5 minutes carry whatever arose for you in contemplation practice into your everyday life.

If there's a verse you think should be contemplated or think I should discuss, let me know in the comment section below.  

 Hiphop Alive

Justin F. Miles is the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment.     

Contemplation # 1

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Took a picture of the truth and tried to develop it.

Had proof, it was only recognized by the intelligent.

- Common

Let's say for a minute that Common could take a picture of the truth. What would it look like? He's talking about THE Truth not A truth.

Many people claim to possess or know the truth but how do we know that we know? Common even says he "tries to develop it", not that he was successful doing so. Truth is one of those things that I think is recognized on an individual basis. When we share our truths with each other the only real validity test is if we all engaged in the same process (the development of the picture) and came up with the same answer and even then the truth may still be recognized differently based on our individual conditioning and circumstances.

For me the power of Common's verse is his attempt at developing his truth picture because it is only in the dark room of our minds and bodies that we can truly experience what is most real about us, each other and our world. We can also use our everyday experiences with our families, friends and coworkers as the petri dish for our truth experiments. Is it true that people are fundamentally evil and selfish? Is it true that some people are better than others? Is it true that people don't change? When we run our truth test on a daily basis we collect evidence to support or deny our claims. But how do we develop a greater understanding of what is true or not true? One could look at the sky and say that the sky is blue, that is until dusk and then the sky is orange, yellow, pink, purple and then in the absence of sunlight is black. Is the sky then blue? I remember learning that the sky is azure, a shade of blue. I question if I even know what the sky is. The key is looking, and looking again and again. Maybe we never stop looking. Any short sighted, half ass attempt at self or other discovery is closer to ignorance or to the truth.

I wonder how Common knew he found what was true? He says he had proof. Often times truths are temporary arisings that hold space in our lives for a little while, only to be replaced when our experience provides us with a different outlook. So I come back to what would a picture of the truth look like? Would it be more worthwhile to take a picture of the development process? I wonder if that's why according to Common the truth was only recognized by the intelligent. That for someone to see the truth one would have to go through the process of breaking down the truth for themselves, develop the picture and then through using their own natural intelligence, see the truth. It is quite possible that our intelligence may inform us that our intelligence is not enough. True intelligence may be in letting go of trying to develop hard truths that do not contain other truths.

I encourage all of us to sit still today, watch your mind, body and environment wordlessly. Just watch and see what your felt experience is like. When I don't judge or label my thoughts and feelings what is the result? How do they exist? When I don't label others what is the result? When i've applied all the labels I can to an object and instead of a single thing, the object has become a hundred things, is it still that object? Allow your raw intelligence to contact your world and see what picture it develops. 

Hiphop Alive

Justin F. Miles is a the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment.     

The Contemplations

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Contemplation as a practice is one of what I call The Three Universal Prescriptions for connecting with sources of wisdom and compassion (Prayer and meditation are the other two). I like to think of contemplation as exploring and experiencing the ubiquitous nature of wisdom. The idea is that if you spend enough time with anything, looking deeply beyond your own conceptual confusion about how something is supposed to exist, then what you will inevitably find is wisdom.

Most of my personal work over the last 16 years has been about looking as deep as I can into Hiphop culture to see what lies at its core. One of my foundational theories is that Hiphop contains wisdom; just as much wisdom as any of the world's religions. If we are to discover the nature and truth of ourselves we have to go no further than our headphones.

Contemplation is best done after a short period of meditation. Why? Because when the mind is calm it is easier to be aware of its contents. In the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, Contemplation is translated as ton gompa or "meaning meditation". We are attempting to extract a deeper meaning and understanding from a concept by placing our awareness on it and then resting meditatively to see what naturally arises from it. 

The process of contemplation is similar to making freshly squeezed juice. First you take the raw product, a word, a phrase, a sentence or a stanza. Next you say the word, phrase etc. to yourself once and then let it reverberate throughout your mind and body. Once you can no longer hear the words, say it again. Its like throwing a rock in a lake. The rock makes concentric circles in the water that eventually dissipate but soon returns to stillness. Once the word loses its presence, say it again. Ok back to OJ. So that last part is like squeezing the juice from the fruit. Now we examine what has arisen from our squeezing. Let's look at our juice non judgmentally in terms of its color, its texture and its smell as a way of trusting that the inherent qualities of this fruit are good for me and appreciating what is naturally there. Just watch wordlessly at what arose from the phrase, stanza etc. and consider what it personally means to you. Lastly we drink the juice and let it provide sustenance to our bodies. In this last stage we rest with the feeling of what we have extracted, returning again to the practice of meditation. To say this a bit easier, we allow what we are contemplating to become the object of meditation for a period of time, then we return to either using the breath or other object of meditation or engage in a formless meditation practice. 

I learned the practice of contemplation from a Catholic Priest who is also a practicing Buddhist. The Catholics call it lectio divina or divine reading. Lectio Divina has four stages: 

......The first stage is lectio (reading) where we read the Word of God, slowly and reflectively so that it sinks into us. Any passage of Scripture can be used for this way of prayer but the passage should not be too long.

The second stage is meditatio (reflection) where we think about the text we have chosen and ruminate upon it so that we take from it what God wants to give us.

The third stage is oratio (response) where we leave our thinking aside and simply let our hearts speak to God. This response is inspired by our reflection on the Word of God.

The final stage of Lectio Divina is contemplatio (rest) where we let go not only of our own ideas, plans and meditations but also of our holy words and thoughts. We simply rest in the Word of God. We listen at the deepest level of our being to God who speaks within us with a still small voice. As we listen, we are gradually transformed from within. Obviously this transformation will have a profound effect on the way we actually live and the way we live is the test of the authenticity of our prayer.

There are many ways to contemplate. I suggest finding a practice that fits you're unique style.

Below are some lyrics from some of my favorite artists that I've contemplated over the years. Enjoy!

Ignorance is a poison and knowledge will nourish-KRS-ONE

It’s a paradox we call reality, so keeping it real will make you a casualty of abnormal normality-Talib Kweli

The only bridge ive ever burned along this legacy I dance is the one that linked the cities of prosperity and chance.-Aesop Rock

Your insanity is my clarity, not to mention convention is a great war weapon.-El-P

Its your brain against my mind-Q-Tip

Global mass awakening vs. debt enslavement engines

Racing neck and neck toward a photo finish ending. -Bigg Jus

They pray four times per day, they pray five. Who ways is strange when its time to survive? –MF DOOM

Study and be wise in these days of darkness - Killah Priest

I pray to you for the light you might give them, mother make them know that you're living with them, you begin them and end them in silence, frankly if they knew you they would understand violence –KRS, Higher Level

Wisdom is better than rubies, silver, or gold

It's higher in value plus more durable - LMNO

All over the world hearts pound with the rhythm

Fear not of men because men must die

Mind over matter and soul before flesh

Angels for the pain keep a record in time

which is passin and runnin like a caravan freighter

The world is overrun with the wealthy and the wicked

But God is sufficient in disposin of affairs

Gunmen and stockholders try to merit my fear

But God is sufficient over plans they prepared. - Mos Def

Took a picture of the truth and tried to develop it

Had proof, it was only recognized by the intelligent - Common

To know everything is to know nothing, nothing is zero so zeros my hero- Yaggfu Front

The pleasure I receive's beyond measure, because I believe I can control the weather. And I choose the sunshine, even though sometimes it rains. My head never hangs in the confines of solitude, I do what I gotta do to maintain my attitude of gratitude. For even breathing. What do you believe in? How long you've been self-deceiving that you're helpless, and life is dark and dismal. A thought that I don't resemble and I won't fall into. - Pep Love

Vibration is sound. Now who makes the sound? –Slug

Remember these good times and these hard times But it's like that, and that's the way it is And that's the way it was, but that ain't how it gottabe Reflect your mind, it works every time Cuz if I knew then what I knew now, I'd be doin' fine Reflect your mind, it works every time Cuz if you knew then what you know now, you'd be doin' fine- Aceyalone

I know that Yeezus was a mortal man & HOV ain't Jahova just a normal man you see we all lambs to the slaughter we all die but some die harder. - Oddisee

I just know that one day, that anything I needed I could mold get everything you want it ain't always good for the soul a mix of self worth, some help, a little control & I don't know the rest, good as mine is your guess the recipe ain't the best, to make it though is our quest & if you choose to except, the meaning of life is yes. – Oddisee

Rebellious to darkness, let there be light. Your very existence brings life to the shadows that dance on the walls in my mind. Creatures with no faces, no expressions, no colours, no emotions, wait Dimensioning, no mind of their own. These are slaves of mimic, see they mimic you. And they are your slaves for as long as you shine tears of sorrow, signs of grief, threaten your very existence. Let your thoughts remain calm and you will shine forever. – One Be Lo

Overly anxious can't just wait. To see when death is gonna pull you to your fate. It's inevitable there's no escape. There's no mistake. Every time a life is given it's another one you have to take. Then your electricity and and your energy's released. Born into another soul after your physical's deceased. May you forever rest in peace. Although your current is concurrent there is no deterrent. You will cease to be no more. The war has been won, the warrior is rested and your duty here is done. Just when you think you're having fun, it'll snatch you up and run. For a second you appreciate the sun. For a half a second you appreciate the stars. For a half a second you reflect on who you are and what you where. And in a flash it's all a blur. – Aceyalone

Harvested love only comes after rain. Even though it brings overwhelming strain. It falls from all skies so I can't complain. Without it, our growth would not be the same. Most people like to have someone to blame But it falls randomly, not taking aim. It makes up one half of the yin and yang. Without the water, you can't have the flame. Without the water, you can't have the flame. Some are content holding ground in their game. But when my soul steps to exit this frame I will be reincarnated as…rain. – Eyedea

Now it's all about purpose, progress, not perfection. Seeing beneath the surface, faith followed by action. I live it all now, with a hunger and a passion. And when I get stuck I let go and keep mashin'. And when I get stuck, I get still and just ask Him. For knowledge of His will, then my third eye transcends. – Gift of Gab

Control what I hold and of course be the boss of myself, no one else will bring my wealth. – Big Daddy Kane

My conversations with God always seem to leave him speechless. – Big K.R.I.T.

 Hiphop Alive

Justin F. Miles is the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment.    

Hiphop And Non Duality

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Hiphop and Non Duality

Hiphop doesn't exist…

If it does then show it to me now….and when you do please don't point to an album, your Tidal library, a microphone, a website etc. because we don't call that Hiphop. We have names for those things.

But what can be named can be identified, it has color, shape and place in space in reference to another object. So where is the thing that we call Hiphop.

Or is it a thing at all? Is it a feeling? An experience? If so what is the experience? What drives us to label things Hiphop or not Hiphop? What is the difference between the two?

Afrika Bambaataa defined Hiphop as peace, love, unity, and understanding. Well where are those things? Do those qualities exist as tangible objects or are they something more subtle and tacit? All “things” have a beginning and an end. They have an origin, at least relatively, but did peace, love, unity and understanding have a beginning or have they existed before there was a mind to perceive them? If we entertain the latter then we have to look at what we call Hiphop as something free of coming and going, something that is free of origins and endings, free from conditions…

In fact I postulate that Hiphop is freedom from conditions simply because it allows all conditions to exist. It does not fight, it does not reject, it embraces and incorporates. It becomes more whole through allowing whatever arises to arise. It freely samples the world and finds it beautiful. In this way Hiphop is whole.

Out of peace, love, unity and understanding came the elements of Hiphop.

The elements are the children of Hiphop. No less Hiphop themselves and not completely Hiphop by themselves, they were birthed to teach us about Hiphop and the possibilities of finding peace, love, unity and understanding within, between and as all things.

This relationship as nature and manifestation are what give Hiphop the status as nondual.

It is the ground out of which the elements arise and it is the end goal for all those that practice it and it is everything in-between no matter how you practice it.

Nothing is separate from it no matter how foreign to peace, love, unity and understanding it seems.  

When Chief Keef and Mos Def create a song they do with the same underlying intention whether they know it or not; to manifest peace, love, unity and understanding. All seeking is seeking the nature of things. The only difference is a matter of knowing, of experiencing Hiphop. When one has experienced Hiphop (and knows it as ones self) then one begins to create with the intention of manifesting the qualities of Hiphop. When one doesn't know it they create with other intentions; money, fame, power, fear, anger. The only difference is in knowing. All spiritual paths know this to be the end goal of all seeking; that they are what they seek and what they fundamentally are is peace, love etc. Hiphop as it manifests as the elements is part/parts.

Hiphop is then both whole and part, unified and diverse, one and many. This is what is meant by Hiphop being nondual, or not one and not two. It is both the space and the forms that arise out of it.

So then why do most people associate Hiphop with music and entertainment? Well aside from conditioning, most people don't seek the source of Hiphop when interacting with the elements. They only go deep enough to validate what their ego seeks; to be bigger, to be separate, to be the greatest among all. Some go deeper and utilize the elements to bring about sociopolitical awareness and change. When ones intention becomes focused on these things then the source is missed when the source is the award itself.

This is the reason for Hiphop Alive; To begin to see the sacredness of what we call Hiphop and all of its elements so that they can teach us about how we and how all things truly exist. Many believe this line of thinking to be unnecessary, too much, over the top without once questioning their relationship with Hiphop and how deep it could possibly go. You're likely to see comments about this line of thinking that say this is bullshit, that Hiphop began in 1973 with a name.

I urge all that are serious about Hiphop to question the elements and when they began. What were the precursors to the music, art, dance, fashion etc.? These things didn't arise on their own or out of nowhere. They had ancestors and other forms that came before that had the same intention; to awaken self and others to a greater existence that has no origin. They attempted to explain and manifest the unexplainable because it was a nagging sensation; a calling to be more whole and to feel more like a part of the family of things.

When we say Hiphop began in the Bronx as a culture birthed from poverty and marginalization what do you think the opposite of those things are? What were they seeking? What is the underlying motivation of someone who is impoverished or doesn't feel like they have a voice? It is to be alive and to proclaim their aliveness to the world. It is to not be silenced. It is to make a noise loud enough that reaches to the depths of self and the universe that says I am here and I am worthy to be here. It is the voice of spirit saying I will not be silenced. I will grow even in the worst of conditions and I will adapt to whatever situation you place me in. The evolution of all things can't be stopped. Spirit cannot be denied because it knows no boundaries. It's sole intention is to know itself through form and to report its findings to the formless in order to find a way to next time manifest even more fully!

This is how I experience Hiphop.

Every record I dig for is another way of experiencing my own fragmented experience of humanity. Every rhyme I write is another way of working out the kinks of my cognition in order to see more clearly how I and all things exist. Every Graf piece I create is to be free from the lies of conformity to form. Every move of a bboy is to experience space in as many forms as possible. Every element has the goal of freedom through form and is a teacher of the highest of spiritual principles.

Ultimately Hiphop leads me to no longer being trapped by knowing.

Being a Hiphop practitioner means engaging in a search that helps to me to understand that what I've been taught doesn't withstand the pressure of deep contemplation. Being a practitioner breaks down the barriers between things until I no longer know why I ever thought there were barriers in the first place. When I find no separation, when I find no barriers I find peace because I learn to accept that I am all the things that I have encountered.

When I contact Hiphop I contact myself; my truest self if one can be said to exist at all. I find that there is no fear because there is nothing threatening my existence. It is too big to be threatened. Hiphop is too big for anything that it encounters to threaten its existence. It eats, digests and metabolizes all experience. There is nothing that can hurt or kill it. I experience this fullness as myself and all things, free from the fear of being eradicated by some outside force that will come and go. When KRS-ONE said "we will be here forever" he was correct. There is nothing that can stop Hiphop because it has always been and will always be here forever. No matter how far from the source those that practice it seem to be, Hiphop has remained intact and they have never hurt it. They in fact are a part of its evolution of its self knowing.

Hiphop needs all of the shades of the spectrum of consciousness in order to display all of its facets not just the “conscious” ones. To accept only the Hiphop manifestations that seem to be close to it’s source would be to forget that at one point we all were confused about who and what we are and most of us (including me still are.

At some point in time all of us have been confused about what brings us well being, which is fine.  We come to know only through trial and error. When we accept that the error is a part of the process and not really an error at all we can begin to appreciate the entire journey and others on it. When we arrogantly dismiss those who are in their process of understanding Hiphop deeply we create self deception and suffering within and between us. This is the fundamental error; not seeing clearly based on assumption and a lack of experience. Not seeing clearly we elevate the under developed to the level of developed and reduce the developed to the underdeveloped.

The main practice is to use the elements to see as deeply as possible into how things are, how we truly exist, how others truly exist, how form truly exists, how formless space truly exists, the depth of our values and our interconnectedness. When we utilize the elements in this way there is the hope of manifesting peace, love, unity and understanding. When we use the elements in a neurotic way there is still the hope of manifesting peace, love etc. but the time that it will take, the time that none of us has or is promised is longer. With that way there is only the promise of longer periods of personal, community and global suffering. So practitioners should be urged to utilize the elements as skillful means, to use them as artfully as possible so that in this lifetime there can be benefit to ones self and other beings. No one knows what happens when we die but we do know what happens when love dies in our lives, homes, streets and the world. We know that pain. We see it played out in the entertainment world daily. All of that ongoing suffering is unnecessary. Suffering is a part of the human experience but we do not have to continue to suffer as much. We do not have to live in ignorance of our selves, of our minds, of our neighbors. We can use the elements to awaken to more peaceful and interconnected existence where we support each other on our various paths.

This is the way of the bboy bodhisattva, the way of the microphone warrior, the way of the Graf rebel, the way of the DJ dream weaver.

This is Hiphop Alive.

 Justin F. Miles is the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment. 

Emcee Nature Mechanics

Please feel free to listen to my music while you read. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

Emcee Nature Mechanics
 

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The misunderstanding of and fixation on what we call a “self” is the source of all wackness. When identified with, one becomes wack in that they separate themselves from reality and attach themselves to a conceptual self that is always changing. How can one exist definitely if one’s existence is always moving? What is real is that the “I” that “I” think “I am” is an illusion. All that I am is manufactured, my style comes from another’s style, my dress comes from another, my accent, vocabulary and mannerisms all are not of my own doing, but “I” think of myself as real, existing independently and definitely. And I seek to reinforce that self. “I” even give myself other names, aliases, illusions on top of illusions to reinforce my feelings of this other self. This “I” likes certain clothes, people, rhyme styles etc.

This “I” also battles others who threaten that sense of self in order to maintain legitimacy. Both are false and only serve to reinforce the false emcee. Even though this may bring one fame and accolades, it is hardly the joy that comes from joining with one’s true nature. Why is this? The false emcee suffers at his/her own hands because there is no end to their quest to satisfy the false emcee self, which does not exist.

The false self is never satisfied, all pleasure soon fades and needs reinforcement because all things with beginnings have no lasting existence; they are subject to laws of birth and death. They depreciate as soon as you appropriate. No matter the brand of clothes, type of liquor consumed, media praise, women defiled, fancy wordplay, beat selection, stage show, or number of fans, none of those will bring the false emcee happiness.

Until the emcee’s egocentric desires are cut through they will suffer even to the point of death in the never-ending search for illusory happiness. True happiness is found in that which does not change, which does not go away, which does not need to be born, which is the nature of the emcee itself.

Real emcees fight the inner battle and only battle against worthy enemies or like minds when trying to establish what Hiphop is and is not. Those that are not worthy enemies had no desire to be emcees in the first place and have no care for what is or is not the essence of Hiphop. Battling with them is useless. Worthy enemies are those who would benefit from their egos cut through in order to wake them up to the nature.

True emcees do not battle up (those at higher stages of development). Those that battle up do not realize their nature, are confused and seek to expand their egos. The true emcee does not rhyme for himself as this only closes himself off more from the masses. The true emcee has no desire to build their ego.

Because the true emcee has no desire to build his/her ego, he attempts, through challenging himself, at conquering self-centered intent and scope, in order to expand his awareness into as many conceptual realms as possible, until the realms become homes, but even these homes must be abandoned and burnt down.

The true emcee knows that Hiphop is not something you do, nor is it something you live, nor is it something, nor is it nothing. It is nor and not nor…if a true emcee does create from the ego, it is done out of exploration of what the ego seems to be, not out of establishment of permanence nor out of attachment. She shares her experiences only as a way to wake others up, not as a way to expand her ego.

The true emcee is a citizen of nowhere and realizes that because Hiphop fundamentally does not exist anywhere or as anything, Hiphop is wherever you are not. You are not. The true emcee is not the name behind the mic. He is the one behind the one on the mic. There he abides in Hiphop and in larger view abides in Hiphop everywhere.

One may ask, “How does this writer know with such confidence about the existence of Hiphop?” It is because I have no knowledge about the existence of Hiphop, nor of existence anywhere, nor of fixed ideas, nor of fixed material existence, nor of death, nor of birth. I have no evidence which verifies permanence at all.

It is only when I sat still that I understood that all of Hiphop’s manifestations arise out of the same vastness that all manifestation did. In that, there is nothing that can be said about Hiphop without reference to what was before Hiphop or before what existed before that. I could trace this line of existence back to the original nature itself and I would find that Hiphop exists as the great cypher, the great code, the great circle out of which all things arise and fall. Hiphop cannot be validated by its form no more than anything else.

Path

Understanding the nature of an emcee does not happen on accident. This discovery must be brought about by diligent practice.

As an exercise, focus your mind on your microphone and leave it there, every time your attention wanders bring it back to the mic. Rest in this way until your mind calms. Then ask yourself, Where does this object come from? What is it made of? Who made it? Who made them? What food did they eat? Where did the food that fed the animals come from? Who is looking at the mic?

Try to locate this emcee. Is the emcee your name, your body, is it a concept, is it your profession, where does this emcee exist, if you cannot find this emcee what does that mean? Who created this emcee? Who created them? No thing that truly exists relies upon anything else for its existence or it cannot be said to truly exist on its own. Therefore how can you be the emcee you think yourself to be if your existence is based on all other existence? What is the danger of believing in solidity?

One cannot find a true origin for anything if one is honest and looks deep enough.

Hiphop manifests to allow its practitioners to experience their nature. All of existence is a path to enlightenment in this way. Hiphoppers can reach their natures through diligent practice. Becoming a true emcee is possible, not through egocentered exploits such as wittiness, hyperconceptuality, material appeal, cadence, or anything that comes and goes, but through practicing resting their minds in the nature of Hiphop through meditation on the emcee and abandoning all illusions about how I exist. This steers their minds from their egos, reveals natural openness and relaxation, and brings about the motivation and wisdom to create rhymes with the intent of all listeners experiencing their own nature.

Frution

Practicing in this way, one’s awareness will grow away from herself or himself and towards the nature of all things. This expansion reveals happiness, openness and discovery of the “zone”. One will gain a respect for those in their communities and in foreign lands, find post-conventional culture, art and poetry appealing, respect the environment and see spiritual paths as unified and worthy. Such a person will be without aggression, will see others’ views within their own, will see others in themselves and learn patience. They will be moved to be generous even to their own detriment and will practice cultivating the wisdom of Hiphop in everything they do.

This is not philosophy, this is nature mechanics.

 Justin F. Miles is the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment. 

Begintro

Please feel free to listen to my music while you read. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

Begintro

In the year 2000 I was an undergraduate student at Towson University trying to bring an end to a tumultuous 5 1/2 year Bachelors Degree program in Sociology. Fortunately I still had a couple of electives to finish up so I looked into some classes in the Philosophy Department. I could've taken Bowling 101 or Contemporary Peruvian Basket Weaving but I was at a point in my life where I needed some blend of freedom and pragmatism. I decided that I would take a class on self hypnosis, meditation and yoga. I also remembered that my friend Jeremy had taken a class with the same professor the year before in Amsterdam, Holland. He described the class as a whole as part coffee shop adventure, part Hiphop head fantasy and part educationally enlightening. Who could resist? Especially a class named the Philosophy of Addiction, Co-Dependence and Self Liberation! 

After taking care of the requisite planning and financial burden of a month long trip to Europe I was off to Holland. If you've never been to Amsterdam I'm sure you've heard the stories of coffee shops offering the best weed in the world, the sanctioned prostitution, blah blah blah...all the stuff the average American tourist does. But after the first few days, that grew to be the norm and it was all pretty tame. To me the real beauty of Amsterdam is its ability to create a city that allows for different beliefs and practices to coexist peacefully. When I walked down the straats (street in Dutch...cause I'm cultured) I would pass Buddhist temples, brothels, hotels, record stores, coffee shops, heroin needle dispensaries, artist squatter communes and professional offices sometimes all on the same block. 

The class was held in a hostel in Vonndelpark, one of the biggest parks in Amsterdam where we were also staying. Every morning we would wake up, eat a horrible breakfast and attend class for two hours. It was during this class that I was introduced to the teachings of Ken Wilber, Carl Jung, The Enneagram, Michaels Overleaves, as well as the various developmental structures of Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam.

After the class we were free to roam around the city at our leisure for the next 22 hours. The idea was to explore theories about the self and then go into the dynamic city of Amsterdam to explore who that self is when presented with a multitude of options of how to be. Amsterdam was the perfect choice for this experiment. I was told by my professors that on the last day of class we were offered to take part in a ceremony called Ayahuasca which involved taking a very powerful hallucinogenic potion that is likened to "holding hands with God". As a budding psychospiritual spelunker I couldn't resist the opportunity find out what the experience had in store.

On July 29th, 2000 three students and one professor took a ferry across the river Ij to a church that looked as if it were built in the 18th century. When we arrived we filled out waivers that informed us about the ritual, the potion (called Jurema) and the group leading the ceremony called The Friends of the Forest. The Friends of the Forest are a group of like minded spiritual seekers that practices ethnobotany, or healing through the ingestion of medicinal plants. The Friends used Ayahuasca to help individuals who struggled with depression and substance dependence and reported favorable results.

Ayahuasca is an ancient practice engaged in by various native cultures of South America. The word Ayahuasca ("Aya" meaning spirit and "huasca/waska" meaning vine) roughly translates as "vine of the dead/soul/spirit" called so because it introduces the taker of the potion to profound spiritual realities about the nature of the universe and deep insight into their true purpose; it can also cause temporary psychosis and severe emotional distress. We were told that what determines our experience is our relationship with our minds and how comfortable we were with seeing what it really contained; some people see angels some demons, some both and some neither. As I was told on the waiver, I should also expect to purge i.e. vomit or diarrhea which is a side effect of the potion and an important part of the ritual itself representing a release of negative energy and emotions. It's recommended not to eat or take any medication at least 12 hours before the ritual but it was too late to do anything about my full stomach of Lebanese lamb shwarma. So Ayahuasca is no joke, and I don't recommend doing it without very experienced guides and a healthy grounding in experiences with other psychoactive substances. 

The Friends of the Forest were there as facilitators and guides throughout the 8-10 hour process to make sure that we were comfortable and deal with any disturbing things that we experienced. In the main hall of the church was a shrine on which sat symbols from various religious traditions. Through the center of the hall leading to the shrine was a path of candles and crystals, mainly large geodes, about 100 feet long and a space in the center with a small square blanket with room for about four people to sit. The participants sat along the outer walls of the church surrounding the path. The four of us that attended were joined by about 50 others, all dressed in white, some who appeared to be yogis who wore turbans and had beards that reached down to the floor.

We were told that the ceremony would consist of three rounds and at the beginning of each round we would come to the shrine and receive a cup full of the Ayahuasca potion.  I brought a journal with me to document my experience and wrote in my normal penmanship to my girlfriend at the time about how much I loved her and hoped that the ritual would improve our relationship. After I jotted down some other notes it was time to take the first potion. After the first dose I sat down and we were led through guided meditation while listening to subtle atmospheric music. I began to see trails and have some milky bodily feelings. I remember thinking that it was like taking mushrooms. When my eyes were open I saw vivid colors and had a general sense of peace. When I closed my eyes, my mind was awash with images all of which transformed into whatever it desired. The first round was cool. I remember being so caught up in the experience that I was surprised when we were called for the second round. After drinking the next Dixie cup of bitter Jurema I sat down and began to write a little more about the first round.

" The first round was very peaceful. We went through different meditations and then a silent round. During the silent round is when I began to really feel the effects of the Ayahuasca. It was calm and tingly, like shrooms, then it intensified and began to give me very intense geometrical and audial visions. Audial visions. That sounds like an oxymoron but the sounds were so vivid and in other languages and voices but somehow it was all in English but me speaking to me. I went to the bathroom and sat and thought that soon I would be home but no matter how far I fly I can't get away from me."

The second round is where it all fell apart.

I can't really explain the second round because I wasn't really "with it" anymore. Whatever ties I had with reality were cut and I went quite literally somewhere else. It was as if I was transported to another realm where I was present and awake to my experiences but had no control over what I chose to experience. My mind showed me whatever it felt I needed to see. There was no persecution or judgement in my visions, there was nothing that tried to hurt or scare me. Everything I experienced seemed to come to me for my benefit. I remember having a conversation with my deceased grandfather and apologizing to him for not being the grandson I felt I should be. I don't know if he forgave me or not but I do know that he seemed happy. During the second round I joyfully laughed and cried at the vivd, dreamlike display. Writing during the second round was drastically different than the first. Aside from the fact that my handwriting regressed about 20 years, my ability to capture the experience in sentences had been reduced to singular words. I remember opening my eyes and asking myself, "what do I write". What I wrote is:

"The question is what don't I write"? "2nd dose, Trans-critical plateaus unimagined, love,   fathomless, grief, beauty, explosions of God, me, ME, WE! J-Who? C'mon now, you know the answer, you've always known. That's the pain. SHOWING UP! SHOWING UP!  SHOWING UP! 

Showing up, or being present for life is what I took from the second round. All of my life's pain and suffering could be boiled down and distilled into that phrase. I saw how much fear and avoidance were my dominant responses to life and that if I had only been more brave, more trusting that I wasn't crazy, more self affirming, more sure that I wouldn't be destroyed by the experience then I wouldn't be haunted by moments of weakness and frailty. I also realized that because of my conditioning, I could only end my suffering by pledging to show up as soon as possible. Little did I know I would soon be presented with an opportunity to do just that.

While the 50 or so participants of the group were on their internal Jurema journeys, outside of us, in the center of the room was a group of three people playing soft music on a guitar. I remember listening to them and beginning to nod my head to the rhythm. I then began to beatbox very quietly, or make rhythms with my mouth in sync with the guitar melody. I quickly stopped myself, thinking that this was a sacred occasion and out of line. The highly spiritual, yogic like appearance of the other participants and the meditative environment informed me that there was no place for anything Hiphop related. Hiphop is not spiritual, it is not gentle, not subtle and has nothing to do with the divine at all. My mind then flashed to a lesson I learned in my class about a term, "non-dual". That things are not two, nor are they not one. All phenomena do a dance called "the one and the many" where they maintain both their connectedness and individuality at the same moment. What that meant is that Hiphop was not separate from spirit/divine and that although it manifests in various ways that it could never be separate. So me beatboxing was no less "spiritual" than the Ayahuasca ceremony itself, the difference was the degree to which my heart was in aligned with my intention. 

I stood up and walked around the path of crystals to the area where the guitarists sat. They smiled, gestured for me to sit and offered me some water. I spent a minute listening to them play,  gathered my courage and then began beatboxing, loudly. All of a sudden the group awoke from their collective hallucination, raised their heads and began to nod to the beatbox in unison. After some time the guitar players began to slowdown their playing and I followed suit, bringing the beatbox to a close. When we stopped, the group placed their hands in front of their heart and bowed. 

The third round was a blur. I was completely overcome by my visions and don't remember a thing. I did manage to write one word. "Ghost". 

At the end of the ceremony many people walked up to me and shook my hand telling me that the beatboxing took them and the ceremony to another level. One man, Soma, had me call his family in America and beatbox for them.  I wasn't rejected and in fact the beatboxing seemed to be of benefit to others. Whether it was beneficial or not I can't really say, but what I could say with certainty is that I had never felt closer to "God" and "Hiphop", and my definition of those two concepts had never been more malleable. From that moment I vowed to live that experience whenever thinking about, speaking about or creating "Hiphop". However my vow alone wouldn't be enough to turn my insight into actuality. What needed to drastically shift was my view and practice of Hiphop which would only come with my own psychospiritual development. I needed a path. 

 Justin F. Miles is the founder of Hiphop Alive and pioneering practitioner, theorist and educator at the intersection of Hiphop culture, mindfulness and contemplative studies. He is the leading voice championing the use of Hiphop infused contemplative modalities to foster resilience, emotional intelligence, and community empowerment.