Spiritual bypassing is understood as short-changing our path of "growing up" (or "cleaning up") while we pretend to focus on "waking up". But "stepping up" is the important third aspect of our lives. Ignoring our responsibility to step up is equally harmful, whether we are "spiritually bypassing" or "emotionally bypassing" (an excessive emphasis on our emotional growth/healing, i.e. "woundology")

Entering 2020, we saw the ecological crisis as an opportunity to "come to our senses" and re-envision a life dedicated to every day transformation of the three poisons of greed, aversion and ignorance.

Spiritual growth is about more than "letting go". Letting go is essential for working with the toxin of craving. We work with the the toxins of aversion and ignorance by "letting come" and "letting be".

You have come full circle from the innocence of the child to the innocence of mastery. Naked, seeking nothing extra, carrying nothing extra, practice ha completely dissolved into ordinary life. You ceaselessly arrive home.

With joy, you experience the reward body. Mountains are mountains again and rivers are rivers again! Every moment is vividly and uniquely alive, and your heart flutters in consort with life.

Whip, tether, self and ox have all merged, no traces remain. The vast blue sky cannot be reached by thoughts. Even the thought of stages is gone. You are in accord with the ancient way.

Technique, artifice, and need for external discipline are gone! In the seventh stage, the practice does itself. Your life is meditation, practice, dharma. The world is illuminated.

In the six stage effort has become effortless. We are ok with not knowing where we are going, because we are confident in what is unfolding. Twists and turns are no longer a cause of suffering!

In the fifth stage, we reap the benefits of discipline. We broaden the aspects of our lives that are informed by awakened nature. There may not be fireworks, but there is profound and subtle deepening that affects others as well as yourself.

A first true bodily understanding of the insubstantiality of the self can be exhilarating, but very quickly a forceful ego can create struggle and effort. Self-realization is not a simple thing!