chapter one

Healing in the
Bliss Rx Program

The Bliss Rx is targeted toward discovering bliss. In this program you will work in an outside-in fashion to clear out everything that obscures bliss; by doing so, you will bring every aspect of your life back into balance.

When bliss begins to permeate our senses, our minds, our hearts, and our actions, health is restored in an inside-out fashion. Does this mean that blockages in arteries and leaky valves will be miraculously cured? Maybe. Maybe not. But what this means is that with the end of suffering, these conditions will not limit us in any way. They will become irrelevant as they are gently accepted into our reality. Once the bliss of our true nature is tasted, nothing else will seem as sweet or as worthy of our attention and devotion. When we begin to live our lives as bliss, we change the structure of the cosmos. Yes, each of us is that significant and that powerful.

Every choice, every thought, and every action that occurs daily takes us one step toward or away from bliss—and, by default, health. Nothing can be excluded in our pursuit of bliss: the way we brush our teeth, greet our spouse, look in the mirror, talk to the waitress, drive our car, prepare our food, eat our meals, exercise our body, nurture our mind, and relate to our children, colleagues, customers, or parents. Everything counts. It is not just what we do but how we do it that makes a world of difference in whether we are moving closer to suffering or to bliss.

Once we tap into it, bliss expands and radiates outward into our body, mind, and world, permeating them with its joyful and peaceful essence. The following are some of the effects of this inside-out process.

Reduced Stress

If you follow the practices of this program, my hope is that you will experience a greater sense of calmness and an ability to deal with the stressors you face in daily life. The meditation practice alone will have the effect of decreasing the stress response.

Shift in Stimulus for Lifestyle Changes

When it comes to the effectiveness of the program on health and disease, perhaps the most dramatic shift we can see is in why we make lifestyle changes. In the default model, lifestyle changes are made out of fear and resistance—we change how we eat, we start exercising, and we quit unhealthy addictions because we worry about getting a disease or dying before our time. The fear of disease or death hangs constantly like a sword over our heads, the ominous voice commenting on every choice we make.

In the bliss model, lifestyle changes occur out of a deep honoring of our bodies and minds. The wonder of being alive arises not only as a joyful respect for the body’s miraculous processes but also aligns us with all of life. We intuitively reach for foods, exercise, and entertainment that honors this inherent joy. While our progress in the program occurred in an outside-in fashion, it now proceeds in an inside-out fashion, our choices radiating from the wellspring of inner bliss.

Loss of Victimization

When we delve into self-inquiry practices, we realize that the stories we have been telling ourselves have no inherent truth. When we cultivate the ability to stand apart from our stories, we see that believing these stories placed us in the role of victim. When we take responsibility for our own mental processes and actions, we stop reacting and start responding. With this responsibility, we stop being victims and grow into self-mastery.

We realize that no other person, history, situation, or circumstance is responsible for the way we think, act, and feel. When we take back the power for our thoughts, feelings, and actions, we learn to stand in the light of our own bliss. We lose the ability to ask “Why me?” or “What did I do to deserve this?”

Discovery of Forgiveness

When we stop being victims of our circumstances, situations, or others, we become radically forgiving. The concept of forgiveness shifts and we realize that in the spaciousness of the here and now, neither the past nor the future exist as reality. We see that our grudges and hang-ups take away power from ourselves and place it upon our situations and others. We see that we don’t forgive for others’ sake. It is a natural outcome of loss of suffering. Moreover, when we reclaim our power, we see that forgiveness is not something we do. It is what happens when we stop being victims of our pasts, situations, and others.

Discovery of Compassion

Compassion is the natural consequence of loss of victimization and discovery of forgiveness. Note that compassion is different from pity, which has the connotation of superiority. We pity someone that we think is beneath us.

Compassion, on the other hand, is rooted in love and equality. When I see that I’m as much of a slave to my conditioning as everyone else, I stop judging them. I see that the only reason I’m bothered about something in you is that I have the same trait. Empathy replaces judgment and wholeness replaces separateness. My understanding of your predicament is not based in thoughts about how things should be for you, which would be arrogant. How can I possibly know what should or should not be? Instead, I open fully to your pain and allow it to be. You and I become one in the spaciousness of being. Your pain is honored in this openness and availability. All possibilities are held in love.

Discovery of Gratitude

When the grip of conditioning is loosened, we lose the ordinary way of living in the head and move into the spaciousness of the body. In this spaciousness we begin to engage with the world in a novel way. Sense perceptions, physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions become vibrant and alive. With the shift of our mental processes we tend to live in the moment. With this transition to openness we discover an inherent sweetness in all of life. Wishing for something other than what is stops making sense. Wanting a specific outcome also stops making sense. The wonder of being takes over even though life goes on as before, and there is immense gratitude for it. The flavor of our prayer changes from one of needing and wanting to one of overwhelming gratitude for the gift of life.

Growing Acceptance

When we discover the vast, empty spaciousness within, our relationship with life, health, and disease takes a dramatic turn. Nothing is the enemy. If you have a chronic illness, you will start to notice a deep gratitude towards it. It becomes the doorway for self-discovery and you put your weapons down. Your attitude toward treatment will change; of course you will pursue the best therapies for your condition, take your medications, and follow your doctor’s orders, but the why of it shifts.

While in the past treatment was based on fear and rejection (“I don’t want to have it,” “I don’t want to die,” “I want my old life back,” and so on), it is now based in growing acceptance. Thoughts and concepts about disease no longer make sense when you become adept at allowing sensations to arise and subside. You see that all fearful thoughts about wanting or not wanting and should or should not are arisings in the now. They have no inherent truth, and you can no longer take them seriously. This is true surrender.

Note: Many who have experienced a spontaneous cure or a remission attribute it to this deep acceptance. However, the paradox is this: it doesn’t happen as long as your intention for acceptance is a cure or a remission. Only when you let go of wanting and totally allow everything to be as it is can the body heal to such a large extent.

The effects of the Bliss Rx described above will become a reality for you once you start applying the practices and principles that are presented in Part 2. We will now examine the scientific basis for the default and bliss models. If you can’t wait to get started, you can skip over to Part 2 and return to the related sections as you read and practice.

Summary

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