Vacation Lesson Number 1: You have everything you need.

I awoke from a dream on Tuesday morning. I was teaching meditation to a group of martial artists. I was teaching the following mantra: you have all that you need. All wealth and contentment are yours.

You are the martial artist. You are being given a task, you are being presented with a battle in your life time. How will you step up to the challenges that are confronting you right now. Will you surrender to the Gods of Greed. Will you buy into the fear that is permeating our global psychological environment? If we surrender to the fear, we lose. If we surrender to the notion that money is wealth, we lose. If we surrender to the idea that status quo is the only ways our culture can survive, we lose. We have a battle before us, a battle of minds and wealth. The battle is being waged within us as surely as it is being waged without.

The first mantra of the battle: You have everything you need. Look around at your life. If you are reading this and live in the modern world the chances are you have everything you need. Did you sleep in a dry place last night? Do you have food to eat today? Do you have basic transportation (walking is basic transportation)? Do you have people in your life? If these needs are met, you have what you need. My guess is that you have well beyond this basic fare. And so my first invocation, the first tool of the battle, is to daily assess that you have everything you need. Be grateful every day that your basic needs are met: count them. It is here that you will find your wealth and contentment.

Look for the riches in your life as it is. The global culture (as writ on newsstands, business pages and check-out counter magazines) tells us that riches are measured in dollars and in goods consumed. But that is a poor measure of wealth. Look at those pages again: I see no evidence at the checkstand to convince me that more money leads to more happiness. In fact, it looks like just the opposite.

So, lesson number one: You have everything you need. Repeat those words to yourself, over and over again. Tell each cell in your body this truth. Rewire your brain so that it remembers: You have everything you need. Begin to notice how your body changes as it absorbs this information. Let the physical experience of fear drain away. There is a physical sensation to freedom that will replace the fear. More breath, more space in the body. Practice this lesson over and over again. When you feel the constriction of fear returning to your body, repeat the words again: You have everything you need.