This past month's Being Game (where we consider and hold an aspect of spirit for daily contemplation) was Being Connected. This was a particularly powerful game as we came to understand that the quality of our connection to our path, to our environment, to our partners, to our work, to our food, to our ideals, etc., and especially to ourselves has a direct correlation to the degree that we can experience purpose, happiness, and meaning in our lives. In fact, the opposite – being disconnected – is the certain recipe for confusion and suffering. The very act of being connected is the exercise of being present, since the perception and experience of connection can only happen in this very moment. Are you connecting to the message right now? Can you connect to the feeling of a response as you read these words?
Every month our team here plays the "Being Game", in which we choose an aspect of the divine to hold in our attention in order to deepen our understanding of ourselves. This month's game is Being Clear. We are finding endless situations and ideas out of this month's game which are leading to daily awakenings. One aspect that has come to light is that clarity sometimes can only occur after a period of darkness or difficulty or confusion or some other form of suffering. We now see those times of pain and discomfort as a necessary condition to becoming clear. Really. This is a lesson that admittedly needs to be learned time and again, but it does become a new awareness and eventual path to acceptance. How would it be to see any form of anger, resentment, negativity, or pain as a great lesson, a great chance to see clearly?
Another aspect of Being Clear allows one to escape from being paralyzed when living in the "gray" area – that place where one feels stuck, immobile and indecisive. We see that making any decision often allows us to move past an issue even if the choice seems not to ultimately serve us. Some would say that there are "no mistakes", there are simply decisions that cannot yet be judged as good or bad at the time. One such example of this cause and effect is in this famous Zen story:
Once upon the time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. "Such bad luck," they said sympathetically.
"Maybe," the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. "How wonderful," the neighbors exclaimed.
"Maybe," replied the old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.
"Maybe," answered the farmer.
The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son's leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.
Being Inspiration is our "Being Game" of the month. The purpose of our game is to define and to hold awareness of some aspect of virtue, spirit and divinity. Each morning one of our team members will share an example of where Inspiration shows up in their life. Throughout this month we saw that there is much around us that raises our hopes and consciousness. Certainly our hearts are lifted by the natural world, from simple gardens to majestic landscapes. We also see how we inspire each other by the way we hold space and really listen to how we transcend the blocks and challenges in our way. We also see that we can be the source of Inspiration with even a smile or kind word to someone that is not looking for it. We suggest that the simple act of looking for inspiration somehow just conjures up inspiring events and voices. Who and what inspires you?
About 4 years ago we became aware of a local restaurant called Café Gratitude whose founders, Matthew and Terces Englehart, had integrated their contemplative practice as a vital part of the path to awakening. They have since written a book and developed workshops to teach the principles of Sacred Commerce, which Dharma Merchant Services has wholeheartedly embraced and practices on a daily basis. This has been transformative for us individually as well as for our collective approach in guiding our business. It has been liberating to see how this practice is aligned with our company's original intent of right intention, right speech, right action and right livelihood.
In 2010 we were fortunate to hire a former Café Gratitude manager as our Office Manager, and now Yebuny Johnson has left to pursue her calling to teach Sacred Commerce workshops around the country. For those of you in the Bay Area, the next opportunity is the weekend of August 18th and 19th. To register or to get more information please click here.
Being Supportive is the topic of our "Being Game" at Dharma this month. The intention behind the Being Game is to hold a virtue in mind every day as a way to deepen our understanding and experience of an aspect of awakening. Each day one of us expresses their experience of playing the game with the rest of our team. Being supportive has brought awareness to the many ways we support ourselves, each other, and the planet at large. By remembering this, we give more attention to our interactions – "holding space" as we like to say - and really being present to each other. This might also mean being more in tune with our bodies which may be needing more skillful meal choices, water, exercise, rest, emotional support, etc. To us it certainly means holding all of you in a caring, patient and supportive manner. We welcome your thoughts on how being supportive manifests in your life.
Our monthly "Being Game", which comes from the Sacred Commerce practice and book of the same name, is practicing an aspect of the divine throughout each month and that we take turns interpreting, defining, and expressing. This month's game is Being Forgiving – a very powerful way of being. Imagine what it could look like to be living in the space of forgiveness –especially since we are constantly being affected by the actions of others. Right now, think of someone that you feel has intended you harm. You can release the emotional charge by the simple act of letting go of the attachment to the negative reaction. Say "I forgive you" to yourself and feel the difference in your physical and emotional body. For many people, the second and equally painful arrow is the self-deprecating guilt that can accompany the lack of forgiveness, so we invite you to forgive yourself.
On May 11th and 12th, I attended the first annual Wisdom 2.0 Business conference in San Francisco, which addressed health and wellness in the workplace. Presentations were focused around leading research and applications of employee productivity, well-being, mindfulness, creativity, meaningfulness, and wisdom. Over 300 attendees were actively engaged in the exchange of ideas and practices. Click here to watch many of the inspiring talks from the conference.
What I got from this weekend was just how business in the Bay Area has evolved from the simple bottom line of generating profits as an end result to how the business environment is sustaining the body, mind, and spirits of their employees and customers. So many dominant companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the like have changed how their Human Resources Departments have gone from managing health benefits to promoting good nutrition, mindfulness, and spiritually creative practices. This is completely in line with what the great psychologist, Abraham Maslow, has identified as the Hierarchy of Needs – from taking care of basic physiological needs to self-actualization as the highest goal of the individual.
Dharma Merchant Services was created to foster these higher attributes of self-love, acceptance, compassion, morality, and so forth. We see that business can be the most influential element of an awakened life, hence should contain practices that reflect and inspire the presence of love. What could that look like in your company?
The book Sacred Commerce defines “getting complete” as restoring full love with one’s self or another. In the book we're asked to “consider that wherever you are incomplete, it interferes with your ability to be here now”.
This month we are practicing Being Complete by reflecting on what that looks like to each of us, and how we can experience completion and bring our attention back to the present moment. We are looking at our personal and professional lives and seeing where we are choosing to be “incomplete”, where full love is not restored, and then taking action to get complete. We are taking on remembering that we don't need anything external to complete us, and that there is nothing missing from our selves. We are observing where we are putting our attention on what is incomplete, letting go, and shifting our focus to acceptance and perfection.
Here are some quotes from our team on what Being Complete means to them, and what playing the game has been like:
Being complete means loving myself and recognizing that I am perfect. My doubts, fears, and worries give me the opportunity to be strong, mindful, and present. My past experiences, lessons and interactions make me who I am today, but I can choose to let go and take on every moment with integrity and intention.
Being complete, to me, means accepting all that is, without the desire to fix – and seeing our struggle with acceptance as perfect in itself.
I have been incomplete with my partner in that I haven’t been speaking up about how I sometimes feel unsupported and how I sometimes feel like I am not supporting him. After having this conversation with him, we now know how each other actually feels instead of being in our heads. As a result we have made a beautiful new commitment to actively supporting each other in all aspects of our relationship!
To me, being complete means recognizing that for every perceived loss there is an equal gain, for every time I focus on what is wrong, I could equally focus on what is right. Being Complete allows me to recognize this balance and to be present to those ideals that increase love in my life and, consequently, decrease separation.
Playing this game has allowed me to take on listening to my body more, and believing that there lies the wisdom to heal, achieve balance and feel healthy and happy no matter what is going on in my world.
Being complete is seeing that every interaction is released without any residue of unfinished business – or even the slightest trace of emotional discomfort or disconnection – making sure that there is no love lost in the moment.
As you can tell, it has been a wonderfully healing process for us all at Dharma and we invite you to play with us for the rest of April! How can you practice Being Complete?
We are happy to announce that our very own Yebuny Johnson is bringing Sacred Commerce to Canada!
Under her new venture Heartwood Consulting and in partnership with Erin Ross of Get That You Matter, Rob Sinclair of Conscious Brands, and Corinne Ann D Cornish of The Inner Realms, Yebuny is bringing Sacred Commerce workshops to Calgary, Edmonton, and Nelson in the province of Alberta, Canada.
We invite you to share these events with your communities and pass along the information below:
We are delighted that Yebuny is helping to spread this perspective of business as a pathway to awakening to other conscious businesses. When our co-founders, Alexia and Jeff Marcous found Sacred Commerce, they discovered the perfect toolbox of practical practices to expand and nurture the intentions of social justice and sustainability. This workshop delivers the tools and practices that have been key to Dharma’s success.
For more information on bringing Sacred Commerce to your business, email
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. Information on future workshops Sacred Commerce coming soon!
“Being an invitation to love” was our February Sacred Commerce game. Despite its soap opera-sounding quality, playing this game was not only super fun but was quite the opposite of the drama you might expect!
Sacred Commerce teaches that “being an invitation is… a request to participate, come forward, [and]open up to the possibility of an exchange of affirmations by offering a welcoming and encouraging gesture that signifies, “we want to deal with the real you.” Being an invitation is about simply being the essence of service, which we say is love, with whomever you are interacting. It’s not about making others wrong who may share a different view or denying them compassion or care if they reject our invitation. Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, a German writer, artist, and poly math put it beautifully when he wrote: “Love does not dominate; it cultivates.”
There are many instances at Dharma where we get to practice this. For example because many of our clients have had undesirable past experiences with other providers, they sometimes come to us still holding some fear and may have trouble letting go of it at times. It is in moments like these that we are honored to get to be an invitation to love by simply hearing their experiences, not making them or their previous providers wrong for them, and offering these clients our knowledge and services (our form of love) with respect and compassion. This experience more often than not helps our clients regain trust that they will be taken care of and often leaves us feeling inspired and grateful to have been of loving service. It is amazing what transformations occur when we are an invitation to love and the long-lasting and mutually respectful relationships that are cultivated as a result.
How are you being an invitation to love in your life?
This month our Sacred Commerce practice reaches for the stars with being Awakening!
We asked our Dharma Dream Team to weigh in on what Awakening meant to them. We’re thrilled to share their answers…
Awakening can be tricky in my experience because the more I want it the more I seem to push it away. In fact, coming from a place of wanting/trying may actually be counter productive. The Tao Te Ching illustrates this point beautifully:
“Fill your bowl to the brim, and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife, and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.”
What I am learning about Awakening is that it is a continuous practice of choosing to be happy, fulfilled, awakened as opposed to trying to be. This practice looks like choosing to be conscious of the present moment and how I am interacting with it: am I resisting the moment, disagreeing with it, engaging with it, or in love with it? To the degree that I can choose to be with each moment is the extent to which I get to awaken to the beauty, mystery, love, and wonder each moment offers.
As a new member of the Dharma family, I am filled with an incredible sense of opportunity to truly begin my path of awakening. I’m inspired by a new perspective of being love and thereby calling forth love in all parts of my life. I recognize that without my previous paths and experiences I would not have reached this one and am so excited to jump into this new world of compassion, service, and gratitude. I’m taken aback by all the love that already existed in my life that I just wasn’t ready to see, especially with my family and friends. The practice of being me – being love – and seeing the world without a lens of ego or judgment is my awakening.
To me, awakening is the state of becoming aware. Aware of surroundings, implications, and the true meaning of what we perceive on a daily basis. Awakening is the practice by which I am able to more fully understand what my place in this world is. It’s the practice of seeing people not for their actions, but their intentions. It’s also the practice of becoming cognizant of my own actions, and the implications of said actions on my friends, family, community, and world as a whole. My awakening has been the realization that my only true gift to this world is love, and sharing it means being it. Awakening, to me, is being the love that we all seek to share – no matter the circumstance.
Similar to the physical process of awakening from physical sleep, spiritual awakening is my process of allowing my “dreams” of love, compassion and service to gain entrance into my daily “reality”; the reality of my life situation, the reality of my family, the reality of my community, and at Dharma, the reality of my work. Before Dharma, I would hit my awakening “snooze” button whenever I went into work. Most places I worked made no space for awakening; and certainly didn’t encourage it. Dharma has taught me that commerce with compassion not only helps me understand and meet the needs of my valued merchant community, but it also allows me to practice my commitment to service, to consciousness, and to love. At night, I lay my head on the pillow knowing that my work has allowed me to practice what I believe; love for my community, love for mother earth, love for my colleagues and love for myself.
For me, awakening is the process of cultivating the wisdom, compassion, loving kindness, and equanimity that comes from being present to what is arising in any given moment. Our daily practice of Sacred Commerce has created a verbal forum to experience our own awareness as well as to bear witness to the transformation of our fellow dharma mates.
Choosing to practice “Business as a path of Awakening” has been a dream come true. I see awakening as getting in touch with who we truly are. This does not mean waking up to new knowledge, an improved state of mind or a better version of ourselves. This means remembering that all of the truths and higher virtues are not only with us the entire time, but in fact are our very selves.
We wish you happiness and joy on your path to Awakening!
This month our Sacred Commerce practice celebrates our holiday season’s quintessential qualities of being: joy and peace. This season’s emphasis on them gives us an opportunity to reflect on joyful moments: moments passed and moments yet to come.
Upon reflection, we are grateful for the lessons, awakening, and accomplishments we have experienced in 2011. This year has taught us that peace and joy are a state of mind and are always present inside of us, ready for us to choose to express them in our thoughts, attitudes, speech, beliefs, and actions. We have learned that cultivating joy in our lives is as simple as choosing to celebrate what each moment has to offer. We have also learned that peace can come through an active practice of mindfulness from which awareness of the bigger picture arises.
Here are some other examples of how we cultivate peace and joy:
Tell a joke or laugh at one
Share inspirational stories
Give something away
Acknowledge someone
Enjoy a quiet moment with yourself or others
Share meals or good food
Practice self care and compassion
Count your blessings (focus on what you’re grateful for)
What have you learned this year and how do you cultivate joy and peace in your life?
This month we are “Being Healthy” as part of our monthly Dharma & Sacred Commerce practice.
At Dharma, we share the perspective that health doesn’t just mean a healthy body or a healthful diet but encompasses practices of regular nourishment and love of our bodies, minds, and spirits.
Whether it is...
fulfilling a life-long dream to travel (our Co-Founder, Alexia, just returned from 3 weeks in Nepal with Heifer International);
going on a spiritual retreat (our other Co-Founder, Jeff, is attending one at Spirit Rock next week);
planting, harvesting, eating from, and sharing organic vegetables (our Account Manager, Trace, has an organic farm in Petaluma);
rock climbing (our Account Manager, Nick, is one amazing monkey);
cooking and singing daily like our Office Manager, Yebuny;
or practicing virtues like compassion and gratitude (some of our favorites here at Dharma)...
...there are myriad ways to cultivate health and well-being in our bodies, minds and spirits. We find taking care of ourselves and each other with these practices are also great ways to practice gratitude – especially during this holiday season!
How are you choosing health and well-being for your body, mind, and spirit?
A Buddhist practice called Maitri, the practice of compassionate care and loving kindness, is a useful tool with which to practice compassion toward one’s self and each other.
To us, speaking powerfully means being deliberate, clear, and compassionate in our communication. This is particularly useful when there is something “hard” to say. As our President Jeff Marcous often says, “it’s notwhat you say; it’s how you say it”. Sacred Commerce suggests leaning into our discomfort by saying what we don’t want to say with compassion. This can bring us closer to our dreams and create love and trust in our relationships. On the job, this means always speaking the full truth, with kindness, to new leads and customers. Even if it is bad news and we don’t want to say it, we commit to doing the right thing.
Another a great way to practice speaking powerfully is by making requests. Here the belief is that we trust that others want what we want for ourselves. Speaking powerfully is a way to honor and even celebrate each other and ourselves by standing for who we really are, which we say is love. This month we are asking ourselves, “What stops me from speaking powerfully?” We find that this question gets us out of our heads and into our hearts, and into the present moment where we are more productive, innovative, and often happier. What stops you from speaking powerfully in a compassionate way?
Self-esteem is the measure of how you feel about yourself at a given moment in time. Your worth, however, is not a product of your intelligence, your talent, your looks, your good works, or how much you have accomplished. Rather it is an immeasurable and unchanging manifestation of your eternal and infinite oneness with the universe. It represents the cornerstone of the dual foundations of optimism and self-belief. Your worth cannot be taken from you or damaged by life’s rigors, yet it can easily be forgotten or even actively ignored. By regularly acknowledging your self-worth, you can ensure that you never forget what an important, beloved, and special part of the universe you are. ”
Our friends at The Daily Om shared this perfect article with us explaining the difference and urging us to appreciate ourselves and treat ourselves kindly. We urge you to do the same. To us, you are infinitely worthy.
This past month's Being Game (where we consider and hold an aspect of spirit for daily contemplation) was Being Connected. This was a particularly powerful game as we came to understand that the quality of our connection to our path, to our environment, to our partners, to our work, to our food, to our ideals, etc., and especially to ourselves has a direct correlation to the degree that we can experience purpose, happiness, and meaning in our lives. In fact, the opposite – being disconnected – is the certain recipe for confusion and suffering. The very act of being connected is the exercise of being present, since the perception and experience of connection can only happen in this very moment. Are you connecting to the message right now? Can you connect to the feeling of a response as you read these words?
Every month our team here plays the "Being Game", in which we choose an aspect of the divine to hold in our attention in order to deepen our understanding of ourselves. This month's game is Being Clear. We are finding endless situations and ideas out of this month's game which are leading to daily awakenings. One aspect that has come to light is that clarity sometimes can only occur after a period of darkness or difficulty or confusion or some other form of suffering. We now see those times of pain and discomfort as a necessary condition to becoming clear. Really. This is a lesson that admittedly needs to be learned time and again, but it does become a new awareness and eventual path to acceptance. How would it be to see any form of anger, resentment, negativity, or pain as a great lesson, a great chance to see clearly?
Being Inspiration is our "Being Game" of the month. The purpose of our game is to define and to hold awareness of some aspect of virtue, spirit and divinity. Each morning one of our team members will share an example of where Inspiration shows up in their life. Throughout this month we saw that there is much around us that raises our hopes and consciousness. Certainly our hearts are lifted by the natural world, from simple gardens to majestic landscapes. We also see how we inspire each other by the way we hold space and really listen to how we transcend the blocks and challenges in our way. We also see that we can be the source of Inspiration with even a smile or kind word to someone that is not looking for it. We suggest that the simple act of looking for inspiration somehow just conjures up inspiring events and voices. Who and what inspires you?
Being Supportive is the topic of our "Being Game" at Dharma this month. The intention behind the Being Game is to hold a virtue in mind every day as a way to deepen our understanding and experience of an aspect of awakening. Each day one of us expresses their experience of playing the game with the rest of our team. Being supportive has brought awareness to the many ways we support ourselves, each other, and the planet at large. By remembering this, we give more attention to our interactions – "holding space" as we like to say - and really being present to each other. This might also mean being more in tune with our bodies which may be needing more skillful meal choices, water, exercise, rest, emotional support, etc. To us it certainly means holding all of you in a caring, patient and supportive manner. We welcome your thoughts on how being supportive manifests in your life.
Our monthly "Being Game", which comes from the 
On May 11th and 12th, I attended the first annual 
A Buddhist practice called Maitri, the practice of compassionate care and loving kindness, is a useful tool with which to practice compassion toward one’s self and each other.
Self-esteem is the measure of how you feel about yourself at a given moment in time. Your worth, however, is not a product of your intelligence, your talent, your looks, your good works, or how much you have accomplished. Rather it is an immeasurable and unchanging manifestation of your eternal and infinite oneness with the universe. It represents the cornerstone of the dual foundations of optimism and self-belief. Your worth cannot be taken from you or damaged by life’s rigors, yet it can easily be forgotten or even actively ignored. By regularly acknowledging your self-worth, you can ensure that you never forget what an important, beloved, and special part of the universe you are. ”
