If I really was created in God's image
Then when God was a boy he wanted to grow up to be a man
A good man
And when god was a man, a good man
He started telling the truth in order to get honest responses
He'd say something like, "Dear Ted,"
My town sure is cute
Like a bumper sticker
Like "God Bless America" bumper stickers
Judging by our excessive luxuries, those stickers really work
Now if we can just get God to bless the whole world
Alix Olsen's bumper sticker reads "I LOVE MY COUNTRY,
I JUST THINK WE SHOULD START SEEING OTHER PEOPLE"
But my town doesn't see other people y'all
We're just too cute
Like the difference between what we say and what we do
Like the fact that violence in any form
Is sanctioned by the government as criminal or insane
Unless they're the ones who commit it
My town is cute in the way we worry about the gays
Messin' up our family values and the sanctity of marriage
Yet we still let our children watch television shows like
Wife Swap
The Bachelor
Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire
American IDOLatry
and Fox News
My town is so cute that - check this out y'all
One time, once, over eleven years ago
There were some brown people (boogity boogity)
They attacked two of our tallest buildings and k**ed a boatload of our innocent citizens
Kinda like we did remember in
Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador,
Tanzania, Mozambique, Vietnam, Afghanistan,
Hiroshima, Philippines, Kosovo, Bolivia,
Angola, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Dresden,
Dominican Republic, Cuba, Haiti, Indonesia,
East Timor, Cambodia, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq
And my cute town pretends we never saw it or had it coming
So in a perpetual attempt to save cute face
We've waged a war on terror
About effective as the war on d**
Yes, this is a true story
The first time My Town saw the sky it s**er punched us in the throat
Left us breathless, so breathless
Goodness gracious
Well, well, welcome
What an exciting honor it is to be here at TED
My name is Buddy Wakefield
I'm a spoken word poet
I know, I too was hoping for Malcolm Gladwell
Or Eckart Tolle
Love those guys
Been reading Eckart Tolle's "The Power of Now" for four years
On page 73
I keep getting lost in the moment
Dear TED
Thank you for inviting me to share an idea that will change the world
I accept your super intimidating invitation
And will now speak with this room full of innovative geniuses and renowned fancy-pants about my awesome idea
Which is not actually mine
But will in fact change the world
The idea is: air
Everybody, take a deep breath through your nose and into your whole body: go
Good, do it again
Ok now y'all continue doing that
Forever
You're gonna need it
The idea is to stay present
It offers an absolute reprieve from suffering
Pay attention to the incoming breath and the outgoing breath
Without judgement
Inhale
The idea is to master our mind through the practice of observing respiration equanimously
TED, this, this air that we share
This is our priority
Not our backdrop
Drop your guard
The idea is to make it easy
To turn on the light
To establish ourselves
In a universal, measurable
Tested and proven technique
For coming out of suffering at the root level
The technique is called Vipa**ana
V-I-P-A-S-S-A-N-A
Vipa**ana is a poly word
It means "to see clearly"
To see things as they are
To observe reality as it is, not as you would like it to be
So, it is first important that you see Vipa**ana exactly for what it is
It's a word
It's a word that represents clear, experiential insight into this moment - as is
For those of you who may fear change or unusual foreign names
Please take note: Vipa**ana is a technique, not a terrorist
It does not represent a religion, cult, blind faith, rite, ritual or any other spiritual red flag foreign names may cause in the warring story boards of your superior mind brains
Vipa**ana is work
The right kind of effort
It's a self-observation operation
Where mindfulness of breath
Leads to clearly observing and understanding the sensations that make up our personal biology
It's a practical, reasonable tool that must be experienced
Not just rationalized
The idea is to incorporate vipa**ana into our daily lives
To free our breath from the compounding stress overriding us
The idea is to stop holding on with your neck so tight
To let your head climb back down through your throat and into your body
So you can see just how good you look when you're not compared to anything
Dear TED, pretend inside your skin you've got a friend
Who's willing to give you everything you've ever wanted
In exchange for all you've ever been
Because you do
The idea is that I am here today representing air
It's kind of a big deal, guys
And I don't wanna mess it up so you better not freak me out Utah
I promised myself that if I freak out I'd have to start breakdancing
And I don't even know how to breakdance so we have got to get this right
Yes
Vipa**ana is a form of mediation
But don't worry, this isn't going to turn into "hippie talk with baldie"
I'm not gonna try to levitate incense cones or go whipping crystals around the room with my root chakra
Don't you dare let something as subjective as a cliche word
like meditation rip you off from sustainable joy
We're better than that
Vipa**ana meditation is just an uncomplicated
Moral answer
For eradicating suffering
At the root level of the mind
Consciously, give attention to your respiration
And your sensations, without arbitration
If your mind wanders off, calmly bring it back
Every single time
Start again: go
I know, the answer seems way too easy
Good, then turn off your miserable inner critic and finally start practicing
The continuity of practice is the secret to success
Just ask Malcolm Gladwell
I'm only a few years into this practice of staying present
This practice of not reacting to the distractions of the past and the future
The cravings and aversions that have been controlling my mind since I was a child
So I am fully aware you can still smell the bottom of the barrel in my family blood some days
And that the anger still leaks from the lines in my face
Usually in the morning
But I am also quite certain
Coming from the hard dark handed to me
Right at the start
How utterly, indisputibly vipa**ana has comprehensively nourished and given life
To my health, my strength, my compa**ion
My clarity, my concentration
My awareness
And a thorough understanding of impermanence
Yes
There is still a whole lot of room for me to grow
In patience, in kindness, indeed
And I am still releasing what's left of a very compelling need to be right
But there's not enough time in this talk today for us to compare hardships
Or the gold medals you and I both won in the decathlon of dysfunction
Listen y'all
Forgiveness is the release of all hope for a better past
Reverend Kathy N. Lewis said so
She also said forgiveness is for anyone who needs safe pa**age through our minds
Dear TED: Let's let each other safely pa**
Let's own ourselves completely
Tell me what it is you want me to own
And I will take it
Damaged goods? You bet.
Hit or miss?
No doubt about it
Misses important social cues?
Occa**ionally
I'm dirty underneath the light
I'm pale on the backside of my bright
And I feel a little bit stupid about learning a language
Whenever I experience God
Cause that guy...so fast
My best friend can speak six languages
I still get pretty excited English took hold
Sometimes I don't feel like I'm doing my part on this planet
Sometimes I read without paying attention
Hoping everything will sort of sink in so that if I ever need the answers
Like on a test, my subconscious will somehow pull through for me
I talk too much
If you see me being quiet, don't ask me what's wrong
I'm just practicing
I often wonder if anyone died because of the pencil
I handed to a prisoner at San Quentin State Penitentiary
He stuck it in his pocket
The point is...you're sharp
There are things wrong with us
There are things wrong with me
But I do have the ability to split epiphanies
with my face on demand
Hold me like a birthmark
Awkward if you have to
I wander, so if you lose me, don't worry
After the big tsunami
The only structure still standing in the wiped-out village of Malacca
Was a statue of Mahatma Gandhi
I want to be able to stand like that
Even after getting gargled and spanked and spit out by God
I want to know that I do not have to fall
Every time the sky opens up like a coin return
To change me into little lines on maps
Drawing circles around my blood
Constantly showing scars here in the shape of Gandhi
On my planet
To show that I've been here before
And tonight is not the last time we will see the light
Dear TED
History is repeating itself in record time y'all
And we have got to stop acting like nothing's happening
Right here, right now
With you, at the breath y'all
This, this is my church
And if church is a house of healing
Halleluja
Welcome, come on in
As you are, exactly as you are
Have a look around
Stay out of my p**n
There are ma**ive stacks of bad choices in my backyard
Clearly, i have not yet reached enlightenment beyond a few fleeting moments
It's all I've got so take it
It's called Free Air
It's a practice, not a product
A process, not an event
And to give the best of the goods to the kids
Like an understanding that taking time for personal peace is not a waste of time
Y'all there must be one way to experience
Daily
As a part of our public education
Since children belonging to different religions study together
Thank goodness
Like say...breathing air
Listen I'm not suggesting we integrate more opportunities to see clearly
I'm saying we have to
We now have access to all the evidence
A trajectory of misery at this point
It seems intentional
We are no longer unaware toddlers on the landscape of consciousness
It is no longer cute to crap ourselves
Dear TED
I am standing like shoe polish on an overstocked shelf
Hoping that one day, today someone will pick me to make things better
This is not a showdown or a shootout, we are not facing off
But I can feel the rumble between dusk and dawn
As if the chance to come clean with myself will be outlawed unless I relax
I have heard, that if you pull a bent breath
Through the second hole of a harmonica
Tuned to the key of Georgia
While a train moves by on the tail end of dusk
There is a good chance you will finally know what it means to rest
We, we have not yet rested
It takes a long time to make love with someone who hates themselves