Tacomi's Gift of a Golden Lotus

When I first saw Tacomi, he was kneeling by a river. The Tibetan Buddhist monk, looked up at me and, before any words were exchanged, handed me a golden lotus.

Tacomi’s golden lotus was a harbinger of things to come not only in the inner world of my spiritual growth but in the outer world as well. Six years after he gave me this lovely flower, I was divinely directed to meet with a publisher who wanted to publish my first book. My jaw dropped in disbelief when I discovered that his publishing house in Philadelphia was named Golden Lotus. I did not stay with Golden Lotus as they ran into some financial difficulties.

Nonetheless, Golden Lotus proved to be a blessing. I learned how to independently publish my books. This meant no catering to the marketing concerns of a major publishing house. No trends to truncate the truth of my message. I could present the message I wanted to convey without compromise. Golden Lotus showed me that the important thing was to get a major distributor. And I did. Later on, I could consider allowing a major house to pick up my work undiluted as James Redfield and others had done.

Years after meeting Tacomi, he appeared to me again. This time in a dream in we went to a small hut and began our dialogue. Tacomi discussed the importance of mindfulness. “First, we must become mindful of our breath. With each breath, we come home.”

“You mean we can soothe ourselves by changing our breathing from rapid shallow breathing to slow deep breathing,” I said as I knew breathing was essential to managing our stress.

“Our tendency to look outside of ourselves for relief starts in our mother’s arms,” I said.

“Ah, but therein lies our solution,” he said. “By focusing on our breath, we learn to embrace, to cradle, our painful emotions: anger, fear, sadness, and hurt. Our breath is like the loving mother who gently cradles her baby in her loving arms to soothe her baby when the baby cries.”

“So we can cradle and contain our pain in the arms of our awareness as a mother cradles her precious baby,” I said.

• Today, when negative emotions arise, use the image of a mother holding her distressed infant in her arms. We create more pain by tensing against our painful feelings. Relax and soften the space around the area in your body where you feel the tension associated with your negative emotions, e.g., anger, anxiety, sadness.