The Growth Champ

Moving Beyond Our Binary Minds

Father Richard Rohr highlights the importance of developing an open, “beginner’s mind”:

The dualistic mind is the one we’re all educated into. It’s the one that gets us through the day, helping us make important distinctions and necessary judgments, pointing us to the left or right. It’s essential for the advent of the scientific, industrial, and now technological revolutions, so we’re all grateful for it. It’s good and necessary as far as it goes, but let me be clear, it doesn’t go far enough! The dualistic mind cannot deal with the biggies: love, death, suffering, God, infinity, and the very notion of grace.

To balance what I see as our overreliance on dualistic thinking, we have to find ways to practice thinking in a different way, where we can receive the moment as an open field. I call it the nondual or contemplative mind. In that space, we don’t have to divide the field or reject anything we don’t yet understand as wrong. We don’t have to eliminate everything that’s mysterious, negative, painful, or problematic. With the contemplative mind, we can leave the field open.

This is a major exercise in letting go because we have to let go of our fear, defensiveness, and expectations. I think that’s why so many people don’t persevere in meditation practice, daily contemplation, or periods of silence. I do a twenty-minute sit in the morning and again later in the day, and to be honest, it usually feels like twenty minutes of dying, twenty minutes of boredom, twenty minutes of not getting my own way. All these compulsive, obsessive, and negative thoughts come into my mind and try to grab my attention.

In the beginning contemplation is simply a practice of living with and looking out from our stable foundation in God, what we might call the Inner Witness. We have to be willing to see how attracted we are to negative, paranoid, oppositional, and even violent thinking. We start to wonder, Where did this come from? Why am I doing this?

We must be willing to question, “How could this little flimsy mind ever know God? How could it understand or even hold space for the great love or great suffering that enter every human life?” It will simply jump to the next thing because the dualistic mind is always moving toward resolution. It loves closure and rushes toward judgment. That’s why all great spiritual teachers said, “Do not judge.”

To well-educated, dualistic thinkers, that just feels irresponsible. We have to make judgments, don’t we? Of course we do, especially when it comes to issues of justice and solidarity. But the first lens through which we receive a moment, a person, or a situation has to be nondual. I have to accept all parts of reality—that which I think I understand (and call good), and that which I don’t understand (and assume is bad). Sadly, most never go beyond that. Anything that they don’t yet understand is presumed to be wrong, dangerous, sinful, heretical, or even to be destroyed.

(From CAC Daily Meditations, Sunday, May 31, 2026)

https://cac.org/daily-meditations/moving-beyond-our-binary-minds/



📷KVG
🖼️ Freedom Island, LPP Wetland Park

True growth requires someone willing to hold up a mirror and confront us with the necessary, often uncomfortable, truths.

Mirror of Galadriel (Artwork by Raoul Vitale)

“The Lady Galadriel led them toward the southern slopes of the hill of Caras Galadhon, and passing through a high green hedge they came into an enclosed garden. No trees grew there, and it lay open to the sky. The evening star had risen and was shining with white fire above the western woods. Down a long flight of steps the Lady went into a deep green hollow, through which ran murmuring the silver stream that issued from the fountain on the hill. At the bottom, upon a low pedestal carved like a branching tree, stood a basin of silver, wide and shallow, and beside it stood a silver ewer.

With water from the stream Galadriel filled the basin to the brim, and breathed on it, and when the water was still again she spoke. 'Here is the Mirror of Galadriel,' she said. 'I have brought you here so that you may look in it, if you will.'....

'What shall we look for, and what shall we see?' asked Frodo, filled with awe.

'Many things I can command the Mirror to reveal,' she answered, 'and to some I can show what they desire to see. But the Mirror will also show things unbidden, and those are often stranger and more profitable than things which we wish to behold. What you will see, if you leave the Mirror free to work, I cannot tell. For it shows things that were, and things that are, things that yet may be. But which it is that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell.' “

The Fellowship of the Ring, LoTR Book 2, Ch 7, The Mirror of Galadriel

Life is full of daily choices from sunrise to sundown. Choose well.

A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and a man cannot live without love.
~ Max Muller

Hello and welcome, fellow !

I am Rev. Dr. Rishel Mañas. As a compassionate spiritual being with a human experience, I find meaning and purpose in helping people bridge the gap between healing from their personal trauma and scarcity mindset, so they can achieve a more growth-oriented, holistic transformation and healthier relationships with themselves, their loved ones, and other people.

That’s why doing my vocation as a clinical pastoral psychotherapist, financial consultant, and a certified wealth planner definitely align with my core values and mission.

I’ve written articles, gave lectures both online and in-person, and am now writing a book on the subject in order to teach and reach as many people as possible in my lifetime and even beyond.🩷🩵

Like the hummingbird sipping nectar from every flower, I fly joyfully through my days, seeing beauty in everything.
~ Amethyst Wyldfyre

Glimmers, as opposed to triggers, are small, everyday moments in life that give us peace, joy, or a feeling of safety and comfort. Such moments like sipping your tea or coffee, watching a bird fly by your window, or gazing at that beautiful smile on your baby’s face. The list is endless!

So today, why not practice noticing glimmers as you go through your day? As they say, you might be pleasantly surprised when you start carefully noticing people and things around you.😉🥹😮