A few times in my life, I discovered a tool so powerful, that it’s use alone was enough to reach a goal.

From about 15 on, all I’ve really wanted is to be enlightened, happy, and to make the lives of others better just because I exist. As I got older, I realized I also wanted to DO things to make people’s lives better, just existing and emanating some kind of golden aura is just not it (and kind of a waste of having a body, IMHO). Making a sick person chicken soup, giving clean socks to the homeless, or teaching a kid how to tie their shoes is actually more important. As one of my mentors said while flicking a pencil across a table, “no spirit can do this, but a human in a body can.” So true. A human can also write with that pencil… another thing I like to do.

Along with powerful tools, I appreciate shortcuts. For me, they’ve often worked. I’ve come to experience that a high-quality shortcut combined with genuine earnestness will make things happen fast. And I don’t mean making things happen by magic (no woo woo ‘manifestation’ talk here), I mean making things happen by chopping up celery, or holding hands with a sick person, or building your dream house one board at a time, or curing cancer. No mystery, just doing. The right stuff.

My favorite tool of all time is asking empowering questions.  That is, questions that — by their very nature— can’t be answered quickly, and therefore will mill around in one’s subconscious, until one day, Voila! The answer reveals itself in real life.

These are the most exciting questions to me, because the answers reveal themselves in front of your with a Eureka feeling (wow!), not from some book or some quick, trite ‘solution’ as said by an expert (meh). I love these kinds of questions so much, that when I craft a particularly good one, I don’t even want to ask my Buddhism Dharma teacher, for fear he’d answer it and the quest for the ultimate “WOW” would cease. I want nothing less that full-on realization of the big answers. I don’t think I’m that different from most people.

An example of an empowering question could be “what environmentally-healthy renewable energy source can eliminate carbon emissions within 2 years AND be gladly adopted by governments and businesses around the globe?”  If I were truly obsessing over this question – with a priceless bit of detachment –  maybe the answer would come,  and wouldn’t that be a boon to everyone?

I ‘kind of’ ask it, but I’m not sure I care enough to really let it sink in deep to my unconscious, so not sure how effective I’ll be at “realizing” it. The earnestness part is missing. But I am really excited about what are the shortcuts to embody the goals I hold dearest.  Like, how can I put my goal achievement and spiritual practices on auto-pilot, so that whether I’m remembering or not, I’ll still move toward them?

With a goal to be enlightened, as a force for healing and happiness and love in this world, my question is how can I move toward this effortlessly?  My fear: that my mind is slipping, and I won’t remember my goal, or steps to get there. This is where the earnestness comes in. Maybe “urgent” is a better word. In any case, I do care. A lot.

I’d welcome some auto-pilot here, with a desire to truly achieve, not be lazy.  There is no shortcut to running every day if you want to win a marathon. But what if your auto-pilot, made you “just do” the run every day without a huge amount of mental effort and cajoling?   You’d finish the marathon, but it would be effortless, although your body did all the physical efforts required to achieve the goal. So, I’m not looking to escape “the work,” of reaching the peak, so to speak. I’m looking for getting onto a track that will take me there, whether I remember where I’m going or not. There, that’s it. Auto-pilot to enlightenment. That’s what I want.

How about you?