By Caverly Morgan

Consider for a moment how we collectively identify with “if only” conditioning. Our capitalist structure is born of and thrives in an “if only” environment. From a very young age, we are conditioned to believe that “if only” we had [fill in the blank], then we’d be happy. This way of thinking assumes that our well-being is intimately tied to the content of our lives: happiness is an outside job.

In the same way we’ve inherited individual conditioning (I am conditioned to believe that in order to receive love, it’s important to get things right, for example), we also inherit, absorb, adopt collective conditioning. The two are so intimately woven that they cannot, with accuracy, be called “two.”

 

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Caverly Morgan is a meditation teacher, non-profit founder, speaker, and author. She is the founder of Peace in Schools, a nonprofit that created the nation’s first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools. Caverly is also the founder of Presence Collective, a community of cross-cultural contemplatives committed to personal and collective transformation. She is the author of A Kids Book About Mindfulness as well as The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together. Caverly blends the original spirit of Zen with a modern non-dual approach. Her practice began in 1995 and has included eight years of training in a silent Zen monastery. She has been teaching contemplative practice since 2001 and leads meditation retreats, workshops and online classes internationally. Learn more at caverlymorgan.org.

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