Issue link: https://www.massageandbodyworkdigital.com/i/77424
and by our beliefs of what must be that are based on what has been. But karma is not the only determinant of our journey. We may always have the same baggage from the past, but this does not mean that we are bound for any inevitable destination. The rails we have traveled got us to where we are, but it is possible to be given a new ticket and to change trains. Or to fly. These novelties of the moment are doorways through which we can discover the option of stepping off the relentless wheel of karma—our past—and into a state of grace, which now adds these seeds of novelty to that past and which have the fragile potential of changing everything in our future, a future that is not at this present moment yet determined. This is the therapeutic moment, the spiritually transforming kernel of consciousness that is the interface between the repetitious depositing of our past and the opening toward what we might become. These potentially transformative events in the landscape of our perception have the possibility of occurring every time we engage in the touch of flesh with flesh, when another's history touches our own and makes us aware of what has been for another—and could be for us— perceived and acted upon differently. There is a story I like. Two students were sitting with their guru under a large willow tree. The first asked, "Master, how many more lifetimes will it take me to achieve enlightenment?" The guru replied, "I think perhaps two or three hundred more." This student was dismayed that after all his disciplined efforts there remained so many lifetimes of labor to realize his goal, and he collapsed in grief. The second student, unsettled by the answer and its devastating result for the first one, resolved nevertheless to ask the same question: "Master, how many lifetimes will I have to labor to achieve my enlightenment?" The guru pointed upward toward the large willow and replied, "As many lifetimes as there are leaves on this tree." This second student was so overjoyed to hear that there would indeed be a successful end to his efforts that he immediately entered nirvana. And this is what I meant when I answered the woman in my class who asked, "What do you mean by reaching the mind?" Jessica Turken in the San Francisco Bay area. He is the author of the pivotal text Job's Body: A Handbook for Bodywork, first published in 1987. Contact him at deanejuhan@comcast.net. Deane Juhan resides with his wife NOTE 1. "Brownian movement," Merriam-Webster Unabridged online, accessed October 17, 2011, http://unabridged. merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged?va=Bro wnian+movement+&x=0&y=0: the peculiar random movement exhibited by microscopic particles of both organic and inorganic substances when suspended in liquids or gases that is caused by the impact of the molecules of fluid surrounding the particles. earn CE hours at your convenience: abmp's online education center, www.abmp.com 67